UC-NRLF 


P^* 


B    M    OfiE    fits 


(S\\i  l\nmvBxty  of  Qlt^tragn 


H    RDER'S  RELATION"  TO  THE 

AESTHETIC  THEORY 

OF  HIS  TIiME 

A  CONTRlBLTfON  Bx^SED  ON  THK  FOURTH 
CRITICAL  WALDCHEN 

A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY 

OF  THE  C^ADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND  LITERATURE 

IN  CANDIDACY  Fu.^  TH!:  DEGREE  OF 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

UEPABTMENT   OF   GERMAN 


iJY 


MALCOLlv!  HOWA:a>  ;),AVr.V 


Private  Edition,  Distributed  By 
IHE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  LlhRAR^ 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 
1920 


EXCHANGE 


aFlf0  Itttwrattij  of  ffilftragu 


HERDER'S  RELATION  TO  THE 

AESTHETIC  THEORY 

OF  HIS  TIME 

A  CONTRIBUTION  BASED  ON  THE  FOURTH 
CRITICAL  WALDCHEN 

A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY 

OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND  LITERATURE 

IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

DEPAKTMEMT  O?  GEKMAM 


BY 

MALCOLM  HO WARDf  DEWEY 


*•••  J  *2  J   V  •        •••  • 

Private  Edition,  Distributed  By 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  LIBRARIES 

CfflCAGO,  ILLINOIS 

1920 

■ftt^JAi^ia^ 


Gratefully  Dedicated  To 
KAETHE  WELLER  DEWEY 


X) 


433ii7i 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 

Page 

The  French  Movement 1 

Boileau 2 

Batteux 4 

The  English  Movement 9 

Shaftesbury 9 

Hogarth 16 

Home 17 

Burke 23 

The  French  Movement  (continued) 31 

Dubos 31 

Diderot 38 

The  German  Movement 44 

Baumgarten 47 

Sulzer 49 

Mendelssohn 57 

Winckelmann 63 

PART  II 

The  First  Waldchen  and  Lessing's  Laokoon 68 

The  Fourth  Waldchen 74 

(a)  Part  One 76 

(b)  Part  Two 84 

(c)  Part  Three 96 

Herder's  Relation  to  the  Aesthetic  Theory  of  the  Time 97 

(a)  Baumgarten 97 

(b)  Sulzer 98 

(c)  Mendelssohn 102 

(d)  Winckelmann 106 

(e)  Shaftesbury 109^ 

(f)  Home 109 

(g)  Burke Ill 

(h)  Hogarth 112 

(i)    Rousseau 112 

(j)    Diderot 112 

Composition  of  the  Fourth  Waldchen  with  Special  Reference  to 

the  Influence  of  Diderot 119 


Note 

In  presenting  in  Part  I  a  brief  survey  of  aesthetic  theory  in  the 
18th  century  in  France,  England  and  Germany,  the  author  has  made 
no  effort  to  cover  the  entire  field.  Selection  has  been  prompted  by 
the  desire  to  bring  into  relief  the  leading  ideas  of  those  writers  who 
were  thought  to  be  of  especial  moment  at  the  time  Herder  composed 
the  Fourth  Waldchen  (1769),  a  procedure  which  was  deemed  neces- 
sary for  a  better  understanding  of  the  particular  purpose  of  the  thesis. 

The  Fourth  Waldchen  has  been  examined  in  Part  II  with  particu- 
lar reference  to  previous  theory,  since  it  offers  what  amounts  to 
documentary  evidence  with  regard  to  the  conscious  relationship  in 
which  Herder  stood  with  his  contemporaries  and  predecessors  in  this 
field.  Within  the  work  itself  however  Herder  seems  to  abandon 
what  is  largely  an  eclectic  attitude  owing  to  the  development  of  a 
new  and  original  theory  of  art  which  occupied  a  large  place  in  his 
future  development.  It  has  been  possible  at  this  point  to  indicate 
an  interesting  relationship  which  Diderot  bears  to  this  new  theory. 

The  present  work  is  the  outcome  of  special  studies  prepared  for 
the  Herder  Seminars  conducted  by  Professor  Martin  Schlitze  of 
the  University  of  Chicago,  to  whom  I  am  particularly  grateful  for 
many  valuable  suggestions.  I  wish  to  acknowledge  indebtedness 
further  to  Professor  William  A.  Nitze  and  Professor  Edwin  Preston 
Dargan  of  the  University  of  Chicago  whose  lectures  on  French 
Criticism  were  excellent  expositions  of  French  theory.  My  thanks 
are  likewise  due  Professor  John  M.  Steadman  of  the  Department 
of  EngHsh  and  Professor  Nolan  A.  Goodyear  of  the  Department  of 
Romance  Languages,  both  of  Emory  University,  for  their  criticisms 
and  assistance  in  reading  proofs. 


THE  FRENCH  MOVEMENT 

Aesthetic  theory  in  the  18th  century  in  France  retained  a  strong 
adherence  to  the  principles  and  manner  of  the  French  classic  period. 
This  was  due  in  part  to  the  commanding  position  which  the  literature 
of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV  held  in  the  minds  of  the  French.  But  it  is 
quite  as  well  to  be  accounted  for  in  the  long  history  of  Renaissance 
theory  of  art  and  poetry,  with  its  incessant  reinterpretation  of  Aris- 
totle, Horace,  Quintilian  etc.,  and  in  its  repeated  injunction  to  imitate 
the  ancients,  which  found  its  consummation  in  the  Art  Poetique  of 
Boileau.  The  French  came  to  accept  a  more  or  less  fixed  attitude 
with  regard  to  the  formal  aspects  of  poetry  and  art,  with  the 
result  that  aesthetic  theory  in  the  18th  Century  in  France  drew 
heavily  from  the  past  and  never  seriously  brought  into  question 
the  main  tenets  of  the  age  of  Boileau.  Batteux  for  example  accepts 
completely  the  traditional  point  of  view.  Dubos,  whose  theory 
is  otherwise  so  new  and  interesting,  never  doubts  the  existence  of 
good  taste  as  formulated  in  the  classic  period  and  crystalized  in 
poetry  and  art.  Even  Diderot  never  violently  broke  from  the  French 
conception  of  classic  tragedy;  his  innovations  were  applied  to  a 
completely  new  genre  which  he  believed  he  was  creating,  wherein 
he  retained  many  formal  principles  which  harmonized  none  too  well 
with  his  main  purpose  and  which  were  clearly  an  inheritance  from 
which  he  was  unable  to  detach  himself. 

In  the  matter  of  content,  so  far  as  this  can  be  distinguished  from 
form,  the  new  age  in  France  had  definite  things  to  offer.  The  philo- 
sophical movement  of  the  time  showed  the  tendency  to  break  away 
from  authority  and  investigate  the  facts  of  experience  on  their  own 
merits.  In  poetry  and  art  this  meant  that  the  emotional  reaction 
became  more  and  more  the  thing  of  interest.  The  passions  aroused  in 
a  work  of  art  were  compared  with  the  passions  aroused  in  life,  and 
pleasure  in  art  was  compared  with  pleasure  in  life.  In  approaching  art 
from  this  standpoint,  in  attempting  to  discover  a  natural  theory  of 
art,  in  every  way  comparable  to  the  effort  in  another  field  to  found  a 
natural  theory  of  morality,  the  theorists  of  the  18th  century  were 


2         HEkDER^S  RELATION  TO  THE  AESTHETIC  THEORY  OF  HIS  TIME 

preparing  the  way  for  a  revolution  in  art  theory.  But  this  in  reality 
did  not  take  place,  generally  speaking,  either  in  theory  or  in  practice  in 
France  during  the  century.  Traditional  form  was  too  strong  to 
permit  a  complete  fruition  of  these  ideas,  and  theory  was  not  success- 
ful in  fusing  the  new  theories  with  accepted  principles  of  form. 
Germany,  rather  than  France,  experienced  the  literary  revolution 
and  saw  the  fruition  of  the  new  movement  both  in  theory  and  in  works 
of  real  literary  art. 

BOILEAU 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  the  full  extent  of  the  influence  of  Boileau 
on  the  age  which  followed,  but  we  know  it  was  very  great.  The 
Art  Poetique  (1674)  was  constantly  quoted  and  in  the  main  its 
authority  was  unquestioned.  It  had  the  merit  of  being  a  clear  state- 
ment of  the  principal  standards  to  which  the  age  conformed.  In  gen- 
eral it  represented  an  effort  to  apply  the  test  of  reason  to  accepted  prin- 
ciples of  art.  The  age  in  which  Boileau  lived  had  inherited  from 
Descartes  and  Corneille  a  distinct  form  of  rationalism;  but  the  ration- 
alism which  we  find  in  Racine  and  Boileau  differed  to  this  extent :  that 
it  formed  itself  about  a  conception  of  art  the  impulse  towards  which 
was  found  in  Renaissance  criticism — namely,  the  Graeco-Roman  ideal.^ 
Boileau  had  little  doubt  but  that  reason  sanely  applied,  sens 
commun,  would  confirm  the  classic  conception  of  art,  and  if  used  by 
the  poet  would  secure  the  correct  result. 

The  doctrine  of  the  imitation  of  nature  was  accepted  by  Boileau 
as  one  of  the  cardinal  principles  of  art.  Beauty  and  truth  were  with 
him  practically  identical  terms,  reason  alone  determining  the  question 
of  truth,  and  reason  being  in  the  end  the  organ  which  passed  upon  the 
question  of  beauty.  Feeling  as  applied  to  art  was  little  more  than 
reason  acting  promptly  and  perhaps  unconsciously,  and  good  taste 
was  taken  in  the  sense  of  an  acquired  feeling,  it  being  taken  for 
granted  good  taste  would  accept  the  standards  of  classic  art.  In 
holding  therefore  to  the  doctrine  of  the  imitation  of  nature,  he  did 
not  intend  that  the  poet  should  imitate  the  objects  as  he  saw  them  in 
nature,  but  rather  that  he  should  present  what  he  held  to  be  the  true 
and  the  essential  in  nature,  with  the  special  observance  that  it  be 
acceptable  at  the  same  time  to  refined  society.  This  meant  in  general 
then  the  depiction  of  the  typical  from  which  the  objects  which  we 
observe  in  nature  were  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  deviations.^ 

^  Lanson,  Hist,  de  la  LitL  fr.  10th  ed.,  p.  398. 
2  See  Art  Poetique  III.  359  ff. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time      3 

We  can  best  see  Boileau's  conception  of  the  truth  of  nature  when 
we  compare  his  application  of  reason  to  that  in  Descartes  and  Cor- 
neille.  According  to  Descartes  the  mind  seeks  clear  ideas.  The  ideal 
for  the  soul  life  is  to  have  ideas  as  clear  and  distinct  as  the  idea  of  our 
own  existence  {cogito  ergo  sum)  or  our  idea  of  God.  The  effect  of 
the  passions  and  the  senses  was  to  create  confused  ideas,  and  life 
consists  in  the  main  in  a  wrestling  through  from  these  confused  ideas 
to  the  clear  ideas  of  reason  which  is  its  goal.  The  best  antidote  to 
the  passions  therefore  is  a  clear  idea.  Corneille,  arriving  at  his  conclu- 
sions quite  independently  of  Descartes,  has  the  same  conception  of 
reason  as  applied  to  conduct.  The  Corneillian  hero  consistently 
reasons  his  way  to  a  clear  conception  of  duty  and  there  is  no  thought 
but  that  the  will  to  act  will  be  the  immediate  issue  of  this  clear  concep- 
tion. Corneille's  dramatic  theories  represent  an  effort  to  interpret 
Aristotle  in  conformity  with  his  own  theory  and  practice,  the  crux 
of  the  entire  difference  being  in  this  particularly  rationalistic  concep- 
tion of  character. 

Character  as  conceived  in  Boileau  consisted  first  of  all  in  a  true 
depiction  of  the  type: 

Quiconque  voit  bien  I'homme,  et  d'un  esprit  profond, 
De  tant  de  coeurs  caches  a  penetre  le  fond; 
Qui  sait  bien  ce  que  c'est  qu'un  prodigue,  un  avare, 
Un  honnete  homme,  un  fat,  un  jaloux,  un  bizarre; 
Sur  une  scene  heureuse  il  pent  les  Staler. 

m,361ff. 

To  this  was  added  a  Greek  conception  of  what  he  was  pleased  to  call 
mesure,  moderation,  and  which  in  general  meant  the  elimination  of 
extremes,  or  in  Boileau  the  avoidance  of  what  was  offensive  to  good 
taste. 

When  Aristotle  stated  that  probable  truth  was  more  philosophical 
than  historical  truth,  he  opened  the  floodgates  for  later  theory.  It  was 
on  this  basis  that  the  Aristotelian  imitation  of  nature  was  interpreted. 
Not  nature  as  it  is,  but  nature  "as  it  ought  to  be."  To  Boileau  this 
meant  the  imitation  of  nature,  not  as  it  is  phenominally,  but  of  things 
as  they  are  for  all  time,  the  imitation  of  the  eternal  truths  behind  the 
shifting  changes,  and  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  left  much  room  for 
the  individual  as  such.  This  was  the  truth  which  the  Greeks  imitated 
and  hence  the  eternal  value  of  Greek  works.  From  this  standpoint 
the  imitation  of  the  ancients  and  the  imitation  of  nature  can  no 
longer  be  contradictory  terms. 


To  consider  truth  and  beauty  and  goodness  as  eternal  and  abso- 
lute is  of  course  to  ignore  the  historical  viewpoint  and  to  fail  to  make 
allowance  for  the  relation  which  ideas  may  have  to  the  environment 
out  of  which  the  poet  and  artist  create.  In  view  of  the  attention 
which  the  coming  age  was  to  give. to  the  question  of  milieu  and 
historical  truth,  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  abstract  this  conception 
of  Greek  life  and  art  is.  In  this  respect  they  went  further  than 
the  ancients  themselves  and  tended  rather  to  make  the  ancients 
after  their  own  image,  to  modernize  antiquity.^ 

Batteux 

From  the  standpoint  of  German  theory  the  Abbe  Batteux  is  of 
considerably  more  importance  than  a  number  of  critics,  such  as 
Fontenelle,  La  Motte  etc.,  who  stood  closer  to  Boileau  in  time  if 
perhaps  less  so  from  the  standpoint  of  ideas  and  who  have  accordingly 
been  omitted  from  this  study.  The  "Traite  des  Beaux  Arts  en 
General  ou  Tous  les  Arts  reduits  a  un  seul  Principe"  (1746)^  was 
twice  translated  into  German  within  a  comparatively  short  time 
after  its  appearance,  by  Ramler  and  by  J.  A.  Schlegel.  And  for 
twenty  years  Batteux  became  the  authority  for  an  important  faction 
in  Germany  and  his  followers  were  only  routed  finally  by  the  appear- 
ance of  Herder's  critique  in  1772.^ 

As  the  title  of  his  work  indicates,  Batteux  attempted  to  find  in 
the  theory  of  imitation  the  principle  which  was  at  the  basis  of  all 
arts  and  which  would  bring  them  into  a  single  system.  He  dijffers 
from  Boileau  in  that  he  proceeds  from  taste  rather  than  reason,  but 
it  is  an  open  question  whether  this  point  of  departure  is  after  all 
fundamentally  different.  It  depends  largely  upon  Batteux'  under- 
standing of  taste.  He  seems  in  general  to  have  considered  taste  in  the 
nature  of  an  immediate^  judgment,  where  in  reality  reason  and 
understanding  have  their  place.  *' Although  this  feeling  (i.e.,  taste) 
seems  to  arise  suddenly  and  blindly,  it  is  nevertheless  always  preceded 
at  least  by  a  flash  of  light,  by  reason  of  which  we  discover  the  qualities 

'  See  Lanson  497. 

*  The  edition  used  is  Principes  de  la  Litterature,  Lyons  1802,  of  which  Vol.  I  is  the 
Traiti.  See  also  a  valuable  article  by  Schencker:  "Batteux  und  die  Nachahmungs- 
theorie  in  Deutschland." 

^  Hettner,  Gesch.  der  Lit.  des  18t.  Jhs. 

«  Batteux,  pp.  56-57. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time      5 

of  the  object.  .  .  .  This  operation  is  so  rapid  that  one  is  often  not 
conscious  of  it  and  when  reason  takes  cognizance  of  this  feeling 
afterwards,  it  has  difficulty  in  recognizing  the  cause." 

Batteux  attempts  to  distinguish  the  true  from  the  beautiful.  The 
true,  he  holds,  is  applied  to  that  which  is  considered  without  regard  to 
its  relation  to  ourselves,  and  beauty  is  something  which  has  direct 
bearing  upon  ourselves,  which  attracts  us  to  it.  Beauty  as  such  must 
have  the  quality  of  perfection,  and  while  the  intellect  has  exclusively 
to  do  with  truth,  it  is  repeatedly  stated  that  it  is  the  intellect  which 
recognizes  beauty  so  far  as  it  refers  to  perfection.  A  work  of  art  is, 
however,  not  exhausted  in  being  perfect,  that  is,  in  having  beauty;  it 
must  have  goodness  as  well,  which  in  Batteux  is  taken  to  mean 
that  it  must  bear  a  positive  relation  to  our  moral  being.  Taste  then, 
in  distinction  from  the  intellect  {esprit) ,  is  appealed  to  in  a  work  of  art, 
taste  having  to  do  ultimately  with  moral  values  whether  with  respect 
to  art  or  to  life. 

The  aim  of  the  artist  in  a  work  of  art  is  not  to  give  pleasure  but  to 
imitate  nature,  pleasure  necessarily  resulting  from  the  imitation.' 
In  the  imitation  of  nature  in  a  work  of  art  genius  and  taste  become 
4  practically  synonymous  terms,  except  in  so  far  as  genius  may  desig- 
nate in  particular  an  ability  to  put  into  a  work  of  art  the  beauty 
and  goodness  which  nature  reveals.  "They  are  creators  only  in 
having  observed,  and  conversely  they  are  observers  only  to  be  in  a 
condition  to  create."^ 

In  so  far  as  beauty  is  concerned  Batteux  is  on  classic  ground, 
beauty  being  conceived  in  the  main  as  a  perfect  expression  of  art. 
It  is  the  thing  itself  presented  in  all  its  completeness  and  purity. 
Nature  does  not  offer  perfect  objects  of  imitation.  The  artist  must 
therefore  seek  for  the  perfect  in  nature  by  studying  the  various 
objects  of  the  kind  and  selecting  the  most  perfect  details  wherever 
they  are  to  be  found.  The  famous  example  of  Zeuxis  is  cited,  whose 
ideal  of  a  beautiful  woman  was  secured  by  taking  features  from  many 
individual  women. ^  Moliere's  Misanthrope  was  not  a  copy  of  one 
man,  but  resulted  from  seeing  many  examples  of  the  "humeur  noire" 
to  which  the  author  added  from  his  genius.^^    This  belle  nature  or 

'P.  130. 
8  P.  14. 
•P.26. 


6      herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

nature  choisie  is  a  sort  of  higher  nature,  nature  in  its  perfection,  and  is 
the  single  object  of  the  artist's  task.  Beauty  in  Batteux  can  only 
mean  the  formal  expression  of  this  ideal  nature  whereby  the  mind  is 
enabled  to  grasp  it  easily. 

It  is  largely  on  ethical  grounds  that  Batteux  makes  a  serious  effort 
to  account  for  the  pleasure  in  art.  Nature  in  Batteux,  as  it  was  in 
Boileau,  is  essentially  man.  To  imitate  nature  is  to  imitate  life. 
Against  the  imperfections  of  life  there  is  the  ideal  life,  or  the  life  that 
ought  to  be,  and  herein  the  Aristotelian  distinction  of  tragedy  from 
history  is  brought  into  play.  There  being  a  natural  impulse  in  the  soul 
towards  its  own  good,^^  art  may  appeal  to  this  primal  source  of  pleas- 
ure by  presenting  to  it  nature  as  it  appears  when  it  is  free  to  act  in 
all  its  perfection.  Hence  while  beauty  may  of  itself  "extend  and  per- 
fect our  ideas," ^^  a  purely  Cartesian  viewpoint,  a  work  of  art  by  appeal- 
ing to  the  heart  tends  ''to  the  conservation  and  perfection  of  our 
being.  "1^  Art  thus  presents  the  "example  which  instructs  and  which 
regulates  the  human  race,  vivimus  ad  exempla.''^^  "The  example  of 
nature  which  the  Muses  propose  as  model,  teaches  them  to  do  nothing 
without  a  wise  design  tending  to  the  perfection  of  those  for  whom 
they  work.  Just  as  they  imitate  nature  in  its  principles,  in  its  tastes, 
in  its  movement,  so  they  imitate  nature  in  the  views  and  end  which 
it  proposes. "^^ 

The  imitation  of  "beautiful  nature"  does  not  mean  that  the  artist 
may  not  present  what  is  of  itself  unpleasant.  The  artist  may  put 
serpents  and  monsters  on  his  canvas,  and  the  poet  depict  the  Misan- 
thrope. The  pleasure  comes  first  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  illusion 
is  never  so  perfect  but  that  we  recognize  the  imitation,  the  "phan- 
tom." Should  we  be  moved  for  the  moment  to  accept  the  imitation  as 
real,  the  pleasure  in  suddenly  realizing  it  is  not  so  is  itself  a  pleasure.^^ 
The  explanation  however  which  fits  more  accurately  into  his  general 
theory  is  contained  in  the  statement  that  "the  end  of  poetry  is  to 
please,  and  to  please  in  moving  the  passions.    But  to  give  us  a  perfect 

"  P.  57. 
12  p.  80. 

"  P.  20. 

^5  P.  140.  On  p.  Ill  Batteux  states  that  "if  everyone  practiced  Christianity  the 
way  he  believes  it,  it  would  accomplish  immediately  what  it  mil  take  art  centuries  to 
bring  about  and  then  only  imperfectly." 

"  P.  87  ff. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time      7 

and  sound  (solide)  pleasure,  it  must  only  move  those  passions  which 
it  is  important  for  us  to  have  and  avoid  those  which  are  hostile  to 
wisdom."  The  examples  cited  are  horror  of  crime,  pity  for  unfortu- 
nates, admiration  of  great  examples  etc.  These  are  the  passions  for 
poetry  "which  is  not  made  to  foment  corruption  in  the  heart,  but  to 
be  the  delight  of  virtuous  souls. "^^ 

Effective  imitation  of  nature  requires  that  the  artist  put  himself 
into  the  character  and  situation  being  depicted.  This  was  what 
Batteux  considers  to  be  enthusiasm,  SiS  opposed  to  traditional  concep- 
tions of  poetic  madness,  divine  inspiration  etc.,  for  which  he  seems 
to  have  little  patience.  While  exactness  or  accuracy  is  made  a 
requirement  with  respect  to  the  imitation  of  nature,  the  artist  was 
not  thereby  denied  the  privilege  of  licence  {liberie) ;  in  fact  the  depic- 
tion of  the  truth  or  beauty  of  nature  made  this  an  essential,  whereby 
the  artist  in  the  state  of  enthusiasm  was  at  liberty  to  give  a  perfect 
representation  of  that  which  he  had  in  mind.  The  test  of  the  effec- 
tiveness of  the  result  in  tragedy  was  that  one  should  be  able  to  seat 
himself  in  the  parterre  and  imagine  that  all  he  sees  is  true.^^  This 
might  have  led  to  the"  naturalism  "of  Diderot,who,  we  remember,  made 
a  similar  test  for  tragedy ,^^  had  he  not  held  firmly  to  the  classic 
notion  of  probability  and  considered  that  la  belle  nature  was  neces- 
sarily represented  in  art  by  the  grand  style. ^^  He  makes  a  similar 
test  with  regard  to  painting,  namely  that  all  the  rules  yield  to  one 
main  purpose,  to  produce  a  "deception  of  the  eyes  by  means  of  a 
resemblance,  to  make  us  believe  that  the  object  is  real,  although  it 
is  only  an  image. "^^ 

The  theories  of  Batteux  in  no  way  contemplate  changes  in  the 
form  or  content  of  French  classic  tragedy  or  art.  In  place  of  what 
seemed  to  him  to  be  a  disorganized  mass  of  theory  coming  down 
from  the  past^^  he  proposes  a  single  principle  of  art  around  which  all 
former  observations  and  rules  may  organize  themselves,  and  which 
at  the  same  time  is  a  principle  consonant  with  life,  i.e.,  imitation  of 
nature. 

"  P.  135.   The  entire  passage  might  well  be  compared  with  similar  views  express- 
ed in  Diderot's  theory  of  drama,  with  which  there  is  a  striking  resemblance. 
18  P.  239. 
1®  See  Bijoux  Indiscrets 

20  Batteux,  pp.  243-4. 

21  P.  270. 

22  See  Introduction  to  Traits. 


8      herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

It  is  important  to  note  that  Batteux  did  not  include  architecture 
among  the  arts  strictly  speaking,  and  considered  that  in  this  instance 
utility  rather  than  imitation  was  the  main  interest.^^  Nor  does  he 
make  use  of  architecture  to  indicate  his  conception  of  symmetry 
and  order,  so  frequent  among  theorists.  It  is  rather  painting  which 
gives  him  these  ideas.  "Good  taste  is  an  habitual  love  of  order. 
The  symmetry  of  the  parts  among  themselves  and  with  the  whole  is 
as  necessary  in  the  conduct  of  a  moral  action  as  in  a  picture."^ 

Imitation  of  nature  applied  to  lyric  poetry  had  its  difficulties. 
Batteux  considered  that  a  lyric  differed  from  other  poems  in  so 
far  that  it  was  not  the  imitation  of  an  action  but  of  a  passion.^ 
It  sings  the  movements  of  the  heart.  He  was  led  to  a  curious  explana- 
tion of  Biblical  poetry,  to  which  he  hesitated  to  apply  his  main 
principle,  stating  that  it  was  not  imitation  at  all,  but  God  speaking 
through  man.26 

For  logical  reasons  the  French  movement  is  interrupted  at  this 
point  to  consider  the  English  school.^^ 

23  p.  45. 

24  p.  113. 
26  p.  263. 
«  P.  259. 

2'  Stein:  die  Entstehung  der  neuem  Aesthetik,  sets  the  example  in  this. 


THE  ENGLISH  MOVEMENT 

The  English  movement  in  aesthetic  theory  took  a  different  stand- 
point from  that  of  the  French.  While  classicism  remained  an  impor- 
tant factor  it  was  offset  by  positive  tendencies  which  were  fatal  to  it, 
and  which  made  it  possible  to  relish  not  only  the  dramas  of  Shake- 
speare in  spite  of  their  "formlessness"  but  also  the  Miltonian  epic 
built  up  on  a  theme  which  had  become  anathema  in  French  classic 
theory.  The  change  which  was  experienced  in  England  following 
the  Revolution  of  1688  developed  a  widespread  feeling  of  political 
liberty,  a  fact  which  strongly  impressed  Voltaire  on  the  occasion  of 
his  English  visit.  The  rise  of  the  middle  class  was  the  important 
moment,  and  the  pronounced  moral  character  which  was  evidenced 
in  literature  indicates  a  tendency  in  the  direction  of  a  more  vital 
attitude  towards  all  forms  of  literature  and  art.  In  the  field  of  serious 
thought  the  new  spirit  saw  in  the  scientific  work  of  Newton  a  definite 
example  of  the  experimental  method  which  had  been  indicated 
earlier  by  Bacon,  while  Locke  set  the  standard  for  the  manner  in 
which  we  should  approach  the  subject  of  the  origin  of  knowledge. 
And  there  was  still  another  tendency  in  philosophy  which  confined 
itself  rather  exclusively  to  the  question  of  morality  and  attempted  to 
develop  a  theory  of  a  natural  religion,  wherein  it  was  shown  that  our 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong  were  a  consequence  of  our  natural  relation 
to  society. 

Shaftesbury^ 
Shaftesbury's  contribution  to  the  general  field  of  aesthetic  theory 
was  one  of  large  importance.  In  the  main,  avoiding  metaphysical 
discussion,  for  which  he  had  little  use,  and  adhering  consistently  to 
his  general  purpose  of  establishing  a  moral  philosophy,  he  is  of  particu- 
lar importance  not  only  in  showing  the  relation  which  aesthetics 
bears  to  conduct  but  in  interpreting  this  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
Greek  classic  ideal.  In  England  this  tendency  carried,  broadly  speak- 
ing, straight  through  to  the  theory  of  Home  and  was  particularly 

^  Shaftesbury,  3  volume,  ed.  1749;  works  date  from  1699  to  1714. 


10      herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  or  HIS  TIME 

characteristic  of  English  theory.  In  France,  where  he  was  known  as 
early  as  1707  through  the  Journal  des  Savants,  \ns>  influence  was  to  be 
seen  especially  in  Diderot,  who  however  interests  himself  in  certain 
features  of  his  theory  without  accepting  it  in  its  completeness,  lead- 
ing perhaps  to  a  logical,  if  onesided  development  of  his  position. 
In  Germany  the  case  was  quite  different.  Shaftesbury's  general  view 
favored  the  classical  tendency  which  became  particularly  influential 
through  Winckelmann,  while  the  general  type  of  optimism  inherent 
in  the  system  harmonized  well  with  the  standpoint  of  Leibnitz. 
Lessing,  Sulzer,  Mendelssohn,  Herder,  Goethe  and  Schiller  are 
attracted  by  broad  aspects  of  this  theory,  and  in  the  Aesthetische 
Erziehung  des  Menschen  of  Schiller  we  find  one  of  the  most  complete 
exemplifications  of  this  general  position,  where  in  fact  Schiller  may  be 
looked  upon  as  making  an  attempt  to  harmonize  the  standpoints  of 
Kant  and  Shaftesbury. 

We  can  best  grasp  the  character  of  Shaftesbury's  aesthetic  view- 
point if  we  consider  the  notion  of  totality  which  was  fundamental  to 
his  system.  According  to  this  view,  from  the  smallest  unities  of  life 
to  the  largest  there  is  to  be  found  a  series  of  systems  or  totalities  of 
ever  increasing  comprehensiveness,  the  final  totality  being  the 
universe  itself.  Shaftesbury  was  early  in  life  a  follower  of  Spinoza, 
but  there  is  this  to  be  noted  with  regard  to  Shaftesbury's  conception 
of  the  universe,  that  he  considers  the  world  not  as  something  which 
is  composed  of  physical  forces  or  which  may  be  summed  up  in  geomet- 
rical terms,  but  rather  as  a  living  force  behind  which  is  the  suggestion 
of  a  living  organism.  The  different  species  of  animals,  for  example,  of 
which  man  is  one,  represent  such  a  natural  system  or  totality.  Each 
species  is  complete  in  itself  and  yet  subordinate  to  a  larger  and  more 
comprehensive  order  or  system. 

From  this  general  standpoint  we  are  in  a  position  to  understand 
two  different  phases  of  Shaftesbury's  theory.  In  so  far  as  individuals 
are  organs  or  parts  of  a  whole  they  may  be  judged  only  with  respect 
to  the  whole.  In  so  far  they  are  relative  and  they  must  be  judged  in 
relations.  Shaftesbury's  optimism  is  based  just  on  this  principle, 
that  whatever  is  in  the  world  is  right,  if  not  apparently  in  itself  alone, 
at  least  with  respect  to  the  larger  whole.  '*If  everything  which  exists 
be  according  to  a  good  order  and  for  the  best;  then  of  necessity  there 
is  no  such  thing'as  real  i// in^the^universe,  nothing  ill  with  respect  to 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    U 

the  whole. "2  Many  things  therefore  seem  imperfect  which  to  an 
infinite  mind  would  be  perfect.^ 

He  held  that  there  was  a  natural  state  for  each  individual  in  the 
species  to  which  he  belonged,  however  much  he  might  deviate  from 
it.  In  other  words:  **We  know  that  every  creature  has  a  private  good 
and  interest  of  his  own,  which  nature  has  compelled  him  to  seek  by 
all  the  advantages  afforded  him  within  the  compass  of  his  make. 
We  know  that  there  is  in  reality  a  right  and  a  wrong  state  of  every 
creature,  and  that  his  right  one  is  by  nature  forwarded  and  by  himself 
affectionately  sought.  There  being  therefore  in  every  creature  a 
certain  interest  or  good,  there  must  also  be  a  certain  end,  to  which 
everything  in  his  constitution  must  naturally  refer."*  He  finds  it 
to  be  an  energy  of  nature  that  every  particular  nature  strives  towards 
its  own  perfection;  unless  something  foreign  disturbs  or  hinders,  it 
constantly  produces  what  is  good  for  itself.  This  is  illustrated  in  the 
effort  man  makes  to  throw  off  sickness,  and  in  the  plants  which 
thrive  and  attain  their  perfection  where  nothing  from  without  or 
foreign  may  prevent  such  an  end  in  whole  or  in  part.  What  is  true 
of  particular  nature  is  true  finally  of  the  "Nature  of  the  Whole. "^ 

In  working  out  the  theory  that  the  individual  bears  an  inherent 
relation  to  the  whole,  Shaftesbury  introduces  a  principle  which  is 
purely  classic  in  its  conception.  He  considers  that  we  have  "nothing 
more  strongly  imprinted  in  our  minds  or  more  closely  woven  with 
our  souls  than  the  idea  or  sense  of  order  and  proportion.^^  Unity  of 
design  is  the  principle  which  makes  parts  constituents  of  one  whole. 
"Such  is  a  tree  with  all  its  branches,  an  animal  with  all  its  members, 
an  edifice  with  all  its  exterior  and  interior  ornaments.  What  else  is 
even  a  tune  or  symphony  or  any  excellent  piece  of  music,  than  a 
certain  system  or  proportion  of  sounds?"^ 

In  stressing  the  idea  of  proportion  and  harmony,  it  is  not  always 
clear  in  Shaftesbury  whether  he  had  in  mind  the  more  formal  concep- 
tion as  expressed  in  the  perfect  balance  of  classic  architecture  or  an 
organic  conception  that  finds  an  analogy  in  the  human  body  or  the 
tree.    To  have  brought  forward  the  latter  conception  at  all  was  of 

HI,  p.  7. 
»II,  235f. 

*n,p.  11. 

^  II,  233  f . 
•  II,  p.  185. 


12 

real  significance  and  it  occupies  a  considerable  place  in  his  theory. 
He  had  no  doubt  but  that  taste  for  proportion  was  inherent  in  human 
nature  and  needed  only  the  proper  training  to  evidence  itself.  The 
sense  of  proportion  in  morality  was  in  every  way  analogous  to  the 
sense  of  proportion  in  art  and  therein  lay  the  practical  value  of  art. 
Art  tended  to  develop  this  natural  sense  of  harmony  and  balance, 
enabling  the  mind  more  easily  to  grasp  the  idea  of  totality  wherein  the 
individual  fact  has  value  only  in  its  relation  to  the  whole.  Imitation 
of  nature  which  is  seen  in  art  is  nothing  more  than  the  establishing  of 
a  little  world  wherein  the  individual  fact  is  shown  in  its  true  relation; 
but  this  world,  far  from  being  a  mere  world  of  fancy,  is  one  built 
upon  a  true  knowledge  of  the  actual  world,  so  that  in  art  truth  and 
beauty  are  one.  Hence  art  served  the  purpose  of  developing  a 
natural  taste  for  proportion  which  was  applicable  not  only  to  matters 
of  beauty,  but  to  morality  and  truth  as  well.  The  man  whose  nature 
had  been  cultivated  to  that  point  that  his  natural  sense  of  harmony 
and  proportion  revealed  its  full  authority,  he  called  a  "virtuoso." 

The  sense  of  balance  or  proportion  may  be  considered  from  two 
angles.  From  the  standpoint  of  society  it  represents  a  happy 
adjustment  of  the  selfish  and  the  benevolent  acts  by  virtue  of  which 
man  occupies  his  true  place,  Shaftesbury  having  little  use  for  the 
theory  of  Hobbes,  who  explained  all  acts  as  being  prompted  by  a  kind 
of  self-interest.''  Shaftesbury's  position  is  summed  up  in  this  manner: 
"For  a  creature  whose  natural  end  is  society  to  operate  as  is  by  nature 
appointed  him  towards  the  good  of  such  his  society,  or  whole,  is  in 
reality  to  pursue  his  own  natural  and  proper  good."^  By  applying  his 
theory  of  harmony  to  this  principle  he  developed  the  idea  that 
human  nature  could  be  so  trained  by  this  means  that  there  results  an 
instinct  to  act  correctly  without  reflection.  The  philosopher  and  the 
well-bred  man  agree  "in  aiming  at  what  is  excellent,  aspiring  to  a  just 
taste,  and  in  carrying  in  view  a  model  of  what  is  beautiful  and 
becoming.  .  .  .  The  taste  of  beauty,  and  the  relish  of  what  is 
decent,  just  and  amiable,  perfects  the  character  of  the  gentleman  and 
the  philosopher."^ 

'1,60. 
•111,152. 


From  another  viewpoint  Shaftesbury  considers  the  passions.  Far 
from  wishing  to  subordinate  the  passions  to  reason,  he  sees  the 
passions  as  a  positive  factor  in  life.  The  aim  then  is  not  to  conquer 
and  subdue  the  passions,  but  rather  to  bring  them  into  a  harmony 
with  what  is  for  the  individual's  own  good.  "Men  who  have  the 
liveliest  sense,  and  are  the  easiest  affected  with  pain  or  pleasure,  have 
need  of  the  strongest  influence  or  force  of  other  afections  in  order  to 
preserve  a  right  balance  within.^°  Strong  passion  is  to  be  condemned 
only  in  so  far  as  it  is  seen  to  destroy  what  Shaftesbury  calls  the 
economy  of  the  passions  and  bring  about  a  disturbance  through  a 
disproportion.    This  he  calls  a  "moral  kind  of  architecture."^^ 

This  theory  is  valuable  not  only  because  it  allows  for  the  passions 
in  life  as  well  as  through  art,  but  because  it  is  a  theory  which  recog- 
nizes individual  characteristics  as  distinct  from  ideal  types.  "A  man 
is  by  nothing  so  much  himself  as  by  his  temper,  and  the  character  of 
his  passions  and  affections.  If  he  loses  what  is  manly  and  worthy  in 
these,  he  is  as  much  lost  to  himself  as  when  he  loses  his  memory  and 
understanding.  "12  Morality  consists  for  Shaftesbury  "not  in  the 
control  of  general  maxims,  not  in  the  subordination  of  the  individual's 
will  to  norms  and  standards,  but  in  the  full  living  out  of  an  entire 
individuality.''  '^^ 

Attention  needs  to  be  called  to  another  viewpoint  with  regard  to 
the  passions,  because  of  similar  theories  advanced  by  other  writers. 
It  is  the  notion  that  "without  action,  motion  and  employment  the 
body  languishes  and  becomes  subject  to  disease,"  and  similarly  with 
respect  to  the  mind  and  soul  he  states  that  "the  thoughts  and 
passions  being  unnaturally  withheld  from  their  due  objects  turn 
against  itself  and  create  the  highest  impatience  and  ill  humor. "^^ 
Hence  the  need  of  social  and  natural  affection.^^  This  theory 
to  be  sure  is  not  original  with  Shaftesbury,  except  perhaps  with 
regard  to  the  increased  emphasis  on  the  passions. 

It  has  been  seen  from  the  foregoing  that  Shaftesbury  not  merely 
accepts  the  Greek  ideal  of  proportion,  balance  etc.,  but  attempts  to 

10 II,  63. 

"11,88, 

12  1,82. 

"  Windelband  (Tufts)  Hist,  of  Phil.  508. 

"  Shaftesbury,  n,  85  f .,  cf.  105. 

«n,88. 


14    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

make  it  a  vital  factor  in  his  moral  philosophy.  It  is  natural  therefore 
that  he  should  accept  the  general  principle  with  regard  to  beauty 
that  "there  is  a  power  in  numbers,  harmony,  proportion  and  beauty 
of  every  kind,  which  naturally  captivates  the  heart  and  raises  the 
imagination  to  an  opinion  or  conceit  of  something  majestic  and 
divine.  "^^  It  is  impossible  to  determine  in  Shaftesbury's  discussion  of 
beauty  whether  he  has  in  mind  merely  beauty  of  form,  or  beauty  in  a 
relationship  or  rapport.  In  the  following  instance  it  is  clearly  a  matter 
of  form.  "A  painter"  he  states^^  "if  he  has  any  genius,  understands 
the  truth  and  unity  of  design,  and  knows  he  is  even  then  unnatural, 
when  he  follows  nature  too  close  and  strictly  copies  life.  For  his  art 
allows  him  not  to  bring  all  nature  into  his  piece,  but  a  part  only. 
However  his  piece,  if  it  be  beautiful,  and  carries  truth,  must  be  a 
whole,  by  itself,  complete,  independent,  and  withal  great  and  com- 
prehensive as  he  can  make  it.  So  that  particulars  on  this  occasion 
must  yield  to  the  general  design  and  all  things  be  subservient  to  that 
which  is  principal:  in  order  to  form  a  certain  easiness  of  sight y  a,  simple 
clear  and  united  view  which  would  be  broken  and  disturbed  by  the 
expression  of  anything  peculiar  or  distinct."  The  particular  moral 
application  he  makes  of  formal  beauty  is  seen  in  the  same  connection. 
"And  thus  after  all  the  most  natural  beauty  in  all  the  world  is  honesty 
and  moral  truth.  For  all  beauty  is  truth.  True  features  make  the 
beauty  of  the  face,  and  true  proportions  make  the  beauty  of  architec- 
ture, as  true  measures  that  of  harmony  and  music.  In  poetry,  which 
is  all  fable,  truth  still  is  perfection.  And  whoever  is  scholar  enough  to 
read  the  ancient  philosopher  (Aristotle)  or  his  modern  copists,  upon 
the  nature  of  dramatic  and  epic  poems  will  easily  understand  this 
account  of  truth."^^ 

Relative  beauty  is  not  opposed  to  beauty  of  form  but  inherently 
related  to  it.  "The  proportionate  and  regular  state  is  truly  prosper- 
ous and  natural  in  every  subject.  The  same  features  which  make 
deformity,  create  incommodiousness  and  disease.  And  the  same 
shapes  and  proportions  which  make  beauty,  afford  advantage,  by 
adapting  to  activity  and  use.  Even  in  the  imitative  and  designing 
arts  the  truth  or  beauty  of  every  figure  or  statue  is  measured  from  the 

i«  III,  24. 
"  I,  96. 

^'  In  a  footnote  Shaftesbury  acknowledges  indebtedness  to  Bossu  with  regard  to 
Aristotle. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    15 

perfection  of  nature,  in  her  just  adapting  of  every  limb  and  proportion 
to  the  activity,  strength,  dexterity,  life  and  vigor  of  the  particular 
species  or  animal  designed.  Thus  beauty  and  truth  are  plainly  joined 
with  the  notion  of  utility  and  convenience."^^  This  represents  part  of 
the  rational  effort  in  Shaftesbury  to  bring  beauty,  truth  and  goodness 
on  common  ground.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  he  puts  the  so-called 
beauty  in  mathematics  on  a  lower  basis  than  other  types  of  beauty,  on 
the  grounds  that  the  harmony,  proportion,  etc.,  found  in  mathemat- 
ics, while  pleasurable,  have  no  direct  relation  to  our  own  good.  His 
general  dictum  however  is  this:  ''What  is  harmonious  and  propor- 
tionable is  true;  what  is  at  once  both  beautiful  and  true  is  of  conse- 
quence agreeable  and  good."^^ 

In  the  ^^  Judgment  of  Hercules^'  Shaftesbury  furnished  an  interest- 
ing example  for  the  coming  generation  of  an  effort  to  show  the  special 
treatment  which  would  be  required  in  the  adaptation  of  a  subject  of 
history  to  sculpture.  Here  he  not  only  grasped  the  fact  that 
sculpture  was  confined  to  the  depiction  of  a  single  moment  but 
showed  the  reason  which  favored  the  acceptance  of  the  most  fruitful 
moment.  Considerations  of  both  content  and  form  enter  into  the 
discussion.  Lessing's  indebtedness  to  Shaftesbury  at  this  point  is 
generally  known. 

Diderot  accuses  Shaftesbury  of  sacrificing  beauty  to  the  sense  of 
utility  and  sums  up  Shaftesbury's  entire  philosophy  of  art  as  being 
what  is  most  perfectly  ordered  to  produce  the  most  perfect  effect; 
he  considered  Shaftesbury's  idea  to  be  that  the  most  beautiful 
man  was  one  whose  organs  were  best  proportioned  to  perform  the 
animal  functions,  and  that  the  most  beautiful  chair  would  be  one 
whose  parts  were  shaped  in  a  fashion  most  fitted  for  its  purpose. 
In  other  words,  he  singles  out  relative  beauty  in  Shaftesbury  only 
to  neglect  the  other  beauty  of  harmony  and  perfection.  This  criticism 
shows  a  characteristic  quality  in  Diderot  himself,  that  he  was  unable 
to  grasp  the  Greek  sense  of  proportion  which  thus  prevented  Shaftes- 
bury's theory  from  taking  the  onesided  development  which  Diderot 
here  suggests  and  which,  as  will  be  seen  later,  became  Diderot's 
particular  point  of  view.  Hutcheson  on  the  other  hand  was  impressed 
by  the  formal  sides  of  Shaftesbury's  view,  and  instead  of  grasping  his 
sense  of  organic  totality,  confined  himself  to  a  consideration  of  those 

19  III,  124. 
»°m,  126. 


16    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

more  static  conceptions  of  unity  and  order  and  balance  which  were 
illustrated  for  him  in  geometric  figures. 

Hutcheson  accepted  Shaftesbury's  innate  sense  of  proportion  at 
its  full  value  and  proceeds  with  the  conviction  that  it  is  a  sixth  sense. 
Just  as  sight  gives  us  colors,  though  our  idea  of  color  may  be  very 
different  from  color  itself,  so  the  sixth  sense  presents  us  with  special 
ideas  which  as  ideas  are  quite  independent  of  the  object.  We  secure  a 
sense  of  pleasure  in  observing  order,  symmetry  etc.,  quite  indepen- 
dently of  any  distinct  knowledge  of  ,^the  exact  proportions  in  the 
object  itself.  This  sense  of  proportion  he  attempted  to  show  was 
as  universal  as  the  sense  of  heat  on  approaching  a  fire.  His  investiga- 
tion is  based  upon  an  examination  of  the  effect  made  by  simple 
geometrical  figures,  and  the  results  obtained  here  he  applies  to  objects 
of  nature,  wherein  he  is  led  to  that  confusion  of  intellectual  and 
sensuous  beauty  against  which  Shaftesbury  had  spoken.  He  con- 
siders for  example  that  the  beauty  of  the  heavens  consists  in  a 
comprehension  of  the  movements  in  the  planetary  system,  apparently 
quite  without  regard  for  the  impression  made  immediately  upon 
the  eye. 

Hogarth 

While  not  entering  into  an  extensive  treatment  of  aesthetic 
problems,  Hogarth's  Analysis  of  Beauty  (1753)  represents  a  definite 
and  important  contribution  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  the  time,  the 
influence  of  which  is  traceable  in  all  the  subsequent  writers  with 
whom  we  are  here  dealing.  The  theory  of  the  serpentine  line  which 
he  here  examines,  was  not  original  with  him,  as  he  explains  at  length  in 
the  preface.  He  gives  a  reference  to  indicate  that  it  was  consciously 
used  by  Michael  Angelo  and  he  has  no  doubt  that  the  principle  itself 
was  the  secret  of  Greek  art.  He  finds  mention  of  it  in  contemporary 
French  theory,  but  nowhere  does  he  find  any  effort  to  account  for 
this  principle,  it  being  considered  a  je  ne  sais  quoi  of  beauty. 
Hogarth's  task  then  is  to  show  that  the  principle  is  grounded  in 
nature  and  may  be  scientifically  explained. 

He  attempts  to  show  that  the  eye  naturally  enjoys  "winding  roads 
and  serpentine  rivers  and  all  objects  composed  of  wavy  and  serpentine 
lines."^^  Where  "intricacy"  is  presented  in  this  fashion,  he  finds  that 
it  leads  the  eye  a  wanton  kind  of  chase,  and  the  pleasure  which  arises 

»  Chapt  V. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    17 

from  such  objects  entitles  them  to  the  name  of  beautiful.  Of  all  the 
principles  of  art  such  as  fitness,  regularity,  symmetry  etc.,  the  one 
principle  which  seems  to  be  the  most  important,  because  the  most 
inclusive,  is  variety.  The  mind  enjoys  a  reasonable  degree  of  variety 
and  the  effect  of  the  serpentine  line,  which  rests  midway  between  the 
straight  line  and  the  circular,  is  to  lead  the  mind  easily  and  gracefully 
into  such  a  degree  of  variety.  Many  experiments  with  lines  and 
objects  convince  him  of  a  natural  choice  in  favor  of  the  easy,  graceful 
curve  as  against  the  straight  line  or  more  violent  curves.  So  his 
deduction  is  that  all  great  art  will  necessarily  reveal  in  the  lines  of 
the  figures,  in  grouping  etc.,  the  adherence  to  this  fundamental  princi- 
ple of  beauty.  Hogarth  also  took  up  the  effect  of  magnitude  in 
securing  a  "pleasing  sense  of  horror." 

Differing  far  from  many  of  his  contemporaries,  he  could  see 
consistent  beauty  in  Gothic  architecture,  where  he  finds  that  improve- 
ments were  made  following  the  "natural  persuasions  of  the  eye," 
the  eye  being  naturally  attracted  through  graceful  lines  to  an  appre- 
ciation of  a  greater  amount  of  variety  than  would  be  possible  in  other 
forms.  The  principle  which  is  thus  illustrated, is  one  which  he  finds 
in  nature  and  one  which  too  great  attention  to  the  theory  of  imitation 
might  lose  sight  of. 

Home 

The  most  logical  successor  of  Shaftesbury,  Addison  and  Hutcheson 
was  unquestionably  Home  (Lord  Kames)  whose  Elements  of  Criiicism 
(1762)  represents  the  most  complete  treatment  of  aesthetics  up  to 
that  time  in  England.  Chronologically  he  follows  Burke,  but  the 
strict  adherence  to  the  principles  of  classical  formalism  as  well  as  the 
relation  which  he  thought  that  art  bears  to  moral  culture  makes  this 
work  the  culmination  of  what  has  been  seen  to  be  a  definite  attitude 
towards  aesthetic  problems. 

It  will  be  found  that  in  many  ways  Home  represents  a  distinct 
advance  in  this  field.  His  method  was  intended  to  be  strictly  scienti- 
fic. It  was  based  upon  a  thorough  investigation  of  aesthetic  pleasure 
in  reality  from  the  standpoint  of  psychology.  It  was  a  theory 
which  took  into  account  the  nature  of  the  objects  as  well  as  the 
emotional  effect.  And  far  more  than  any  previous  critic  he  took 
thorough  advantage  of  the  Shakespearian  drama,  which  in  part 
accounts  for  elements  of  originality  in  his  view  point.  It  was  here 
that  he  felt  emboldened  to  break  away  from  the  sway  of  authority 


18      herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  or  HIS  TIME 

and  the  efficacy  of  rules  and  to  substitute  considerations  of  psychology, 
of  human  nature.  But  with  it  all  there  remains  a  strongly  rationalistic 
bent  in  Home's  thought  which  associated  itself  with  a  decidedly 
classic  turn  of  mind. 

Home  makes  it  clear  that  his  purpose  was  not  primarily  aesthetics 
or  criticism  but  through  this  study  the  attainment  of  a  greater  knowl- 
edge of  the  human  mind,  and  in  so  doing  he  distinctly  occupies  a  posi- 
tion similar  to  both  Sulzer  and  Herder  in  Germany.  "But  though 
criticism  is  thus  his  only  declared  aim,"  Home  states  with  reference 
'to  himself,  "he  will  not  disown  that  all  along  it  has  been  his  view  to 
explain  the  nature  of  Man,  considered  as  a  sensitive  being  capable  of 
pleasure  and  pain."  He  will  however  observe  from  first  to  last  a 
scientific  method, which  consists  in  "ascending  gradually  to  principles 
from  facts  and  experiments,  instead  of  beginning  with  the  former 
handled  abstractly  and  ascending  to  the  latter." 

Home  considered  it  important  to  note  that  aesthetics  was  essen- 
tially concerned  with  the  sense  of  sight  and  hearing.  These  he 
distinguishes  from  the  lower  senses  by  the  fact  that  there  is  no 
consciousness  of  an  impression  made  immediately  upon  the  organ  of 
sense,  as  is  the  case  in  the  lower  three  senses,  the  object  on  the 
contrary  seeming  to  be  without.  Hence  he  concluded  that  while  all 
sensation  is  essentially  in  the  mind,  still  we  are  led  in  the  case  of  sight 
and  hearing  to  place  it  directly  in  those  organs,  and  for  this  reason 
sight  and  hearing  were  the  "more  refined  and  spiritual."  So  he 
established  a  gradation  of  pleasures  from  the  purely  organic  through 
sight  and  hearing  to  the  pleasures  of  the  intellect  which  he  considered 
supreme.  This  arrangement  he  thought  to  be  in  strict  accord  with 
the  divine  plan — a  law  of  nature  whereby  the  mind  gradually  ascends 
to  the  full  measure  of  its  dignity.  One  may  readily  see  how  on  such  a 
basis  the  pleasures  of  the  ear  and  eye  served  an  educative  purpose  in 
preparing  the  mind  to  attain  its  highest  end. 

He  was  however  careful  to  note  that  there  was  a  distinction  which 
set  the  aesthetic  pleasures  quite  apart  from  the  purely  sensual  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  intellectual  on  the  other,  namely  that  the  aesthetic 
pleasures  permitted  of  a  greater  duration.  Organic  pleasures 
decreased  in  intensity  when  continued  and  intellectual  pleasures  led 
to  fatigue.  Aesthetic  pleasure  on  the  other  hand  tended  to  rest  the 
mind,  furnishing  an  activity  for  it  which  tended  to  restore  it  to  its 
original  tone,  and  he  is  able   to  agree  with  Dubos  that  silence  is 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    19 

unable  to  calm  an  agitated  mind,  and  that  art  for  that  reason  fulfilled 
a  real  function. 

The  important  truths  that  had  been  laid  open  by  science,  such  as  "a 
general  theorem  and  the  general  laws  that  govern  the  material  and 
moral  worlds,"  convinced  Home  of  the  greater  dignity  of  thfe  pleasures 
of  the  understanding.  Hence  he  is  able  to  consider  the  "fine  arts 
studied  as  a  rational  science  superior  far  to  what  they  afford  as  a 
subject  of  taste  merely."^^  In  other  words  criticism  or  aesthetics 
affords  a  higher  order  of  pleasure  than  that  which  arises  from  the 
enjoyment  of  the  works  of  art  themselves.  This  position  is  explained 
not  alone  by  the  attitude  he  had  towards  the  rational  side  of  our 
nature,  but  by  the  conception  that  the  art  of  criticism  afforded  a 
means  for  correcting  our  taste  and  directing  it  towards  that  perfection 
which  was  an  absolute  standard. 

The  same  principle  holds  with  regard  to  morality.  Accepting  the 
principle  of  a  natural  taste  in  morals,  he  finds  that  the  individual  is 
hastened  to  perfection  in  virtue,  by  a  consideration  of  moral  principles 
or  laws.  Morality  and  aesthetics  were  however  not  merely  analogous 
in  this  respect,  but  the  one  even  as  a  rational  science  aids  the  other. 
Taste  in  the  fine  arts,  depending  on  culture,  goes  "hand  in  hand  with 
the  moral  sense  to  which  it  is  nearly  allied;  both  of  them  discover  what 
is  right  and  wrong;  fashion,  temper  and  education  have  an  influence 
to  preserve  them  pure  and  untainted;  neither  of  them  is  arbitrary  and 
local,  being  rooted  in  human  nature  and  governed  by  principles 
common  to  all  men."  "No  occupation  attracts  a  man  more  to  his 
duty  than  that  of  cultivating  a  taste  in  fine  arts,  a  just  relish  of  what 
is  beautiful,  proper,  elegant  and  ornamental. "^^ 

His  conception  of  a  standard  of  taste  is  distinctly  that  of  Shaftes- 
bury. A  standard  of  taste  arises  from  the  fact  that  we  have  the  sense 
or  the  conviction  of  a  common  nature,  not  only  in  our  own  species, 
but  in  every  species  of  animals;  and  there  is  the  conviction  that  this 
common  nature  or  standard  is  right  or  perfect  and  that  individuals 
ought  to  be  conformable  to  it.^^  There  is  a  proper  proportion  and  a 
proper  office  for  every  passion  and  every  bodily  member  and  any 
deviation  is  wrong  and  disagreeable.  This  is  the  origin  of  the  concep- 
tion of  a  right  or  wrong  sense  in  morals.    Criticism  of  art  like  criticism 

22  Elements  of  Criticism  Ed.  1883.     Chapt.  XI.     P.  175. 

23  Introd.     Pp.  13-15. 

24  Chapter  II.    Part  2  and  Chapter  XXV. 


^' 


of  morals  has  its  high  purpose  then  in  making  clear  what  is  conform- 
able to  that  common  nature.  Without  the  existence  of  such  uniform- 
ity in  morals  and  art  we  lose  the  very  foundation  respectively  for 
happiness  in  society  and  beauty  in  art,  each  of  which  tends  towards 
its  particular  standard  of  excellence. 

Home  enters  very  exhaustively  into  the  consideration  of  the 
passions  and  emotions,  these  being  the  feelings  which  are  raised  in 
us  by  external  objects  and  in  particular  by  works  of  art.  We  are  of 
such  a  nature  that  upon  the  perception  of  certain  external  objects  we 
are  instantaneously  conscious  of  pleasure  or  pain.  This  applies  with 
equal  force  to  internal  qualities  in  others,  such  as  power,  courage  etc. 
Actions  may  awaken  this  immediate  sense,  though  usually  the  pleas- 
ure or  pain  is  here  determined  by  the  intention  behind  the  action, 
and  hence  our  feeling  in  this  instance  awaits  the  act  of  reflection. 
Similarly  we  enjoy  the  feeling  of  joy  in  others  and  partake  of  their 
feeling  of  distress.  And  there  is  this  final  consideration  that  the  mere 
recollection  of  these  things  is  capable  of  such  emotion. 

The  part  that  ''fiction"  may  play  in  generating  passions  in  us, 
which  he  looked  upon  "as  an  admirable  contrivance  of  human 
nature,"  is  made  clear  by  a  very  interesting  theory  which  he  thought 
"hath  scarce  ever  been  touched  by  any  other  writer,"  namely  the 
theory  of  the  "ideal  presence."  By  "ideal  presence"  he  meant  an 
idea  or  image  which  could  be  raised  in  the  mind  by  speech,  writing  or 
painting,  similar  in  kind  to  the  image  which  memory  may  furnish  of 
some  situation  or  event.  One  is  made  to  believe  that  he  is  an  eye 
witness,  that  everything  is  passing  in  his  presence.  "Upon  the  whole 
it  is  by  means  of  ideal  presence  that  our  passions  are  excited  and  till 
words  can  produce  that  charm,  they  avail  nothing;  even  real  events 
entitled  to  our  belief  must  be  conceived  present  and  passing  in  our 
sight  before  they  can  move  us."^^ 

Home,  like  Burke,  distinguishes  emotion  from  passion,  but  the 
basis  of  distinction  is  different.  Burke  had  made  pain  an  element  of 
passion,  while  Home  finds  in  desire  the  essential  constituent.  "An 
internal  motion  or  agitation  of  the  mind,  when  it  passes  away  without 
desire,  is  denominated  an  emotion-,  when  desire  follows,  the  motion 
or  agitation  is  denominated  a  passion. ''^^^    "The  cause  of  passion  is 


^  Chapt.  II.    Part  1,  p.  55. 
»/Z^.,p.  30;cf.p.  11. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    21 

that  being  or  thing  which  by  raising  desire  converts  an  emotion  into 
a  passion. "2^  His  explanation  of  emotion  and  passions  takes  full 
account  of  the  general  position  of  the  moral  philosophers  with  respect 
to  the  natural  relationship  in  which  man  stands  with  respect  to 
society,  and  saw  in  this  relationship  an  explanation  for  our  pleasures. 
In  other  words  he  recognizes  a  natural  order  in  society  and  dismisses 
quite  as  vehemently  as  did  Shaftesbury  and  Burke  the  view  that 
man's  motive  for  action  lies  in  self-love,  but  considered  rather  that 
"his  constitution  partly  selfish,  partly  social,  fits  him  much  better  for 
his  present  situation." 

As  far  as  emotion  is  concerned  Home  finds  a  direct  relationship 
between  the  agreeableness  of  the  object  and  pleasantness  of  the  emo- 
tion. But  he  admits  that  when  sensible  beings  become  the  objects  of 
passion,  the  theory  becomes  more  complex.  Here  one  must  account 
for  the  element  of  pain  or  the  disagreeable  in  the  object.  Instead  of 
seeing  the  positive  contribution  which  this  pain  makes,  as  did  Burke, 
he  develops  a  theory  that  pleasure  results  even  where  the  passion  is 
immediately  painful,  through  the  gratification  of  the  desire  which,  by 
his  definition  of  passion,  was  considered  an  immediate  consequence. 
"A  person  in  distress  being  so  far  a  disagreeable  object,  must  raise  in 
the  spectator  a  painful  passion,  and  were  man  a  purely  selfish  being  he 
would  desire  to  be  relieved  of  that  pain,  by  turning  from  the  object. 
But  the  principle  of  benevolence  gives  an  opposite  direction  to  his 
desire;  it  makes  him  desire  to  afford  relief,  and  by  relieving  the  person 
from  distress  his  passion  is  gratified.  The  painful  passion  thus 
directed  is  termed  sympathy ,  which  being  painful  is  yet  in  its  nature 
attractive.  "2^ 

Objects  of  sight  Home  classified  under  those  which  awakened  a 
sense  of  beauty  and  those  which  awakened  a  sense  of  grandeur  or 
sublimity.  He  distinguished  two  kinds  of  beauty,  intrinsic  and 
relative  beauty.  "Intrinsic  beauty  is  an  object  of  sense  merely  .  .  . 
the  perception  of  relative  beauty  is  accompanied  with  an  act  of  the 
understanding  or  reflection.  ...  In  a  word,  intrinsic  beauty  is 
ultimate,  relative  beauty  is  that  of  means  relating  to  some  good  end 
or  purpose."  He  admits  to  intrinsic  beauty  the  classic  qualities  of 
regularity,  uniformity,  familiarity,  proportion,  order  and  simplicity, 
believing  that  such  qualities  contributed  a  certain  "readiness  of 

"/&«/.,  p.  31. 

"  Chapt.  II.    Part  7.    P.  98.    Cf.  Burke  below,  page  30. 


22    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

apprehension."  He  followed  Hutcheson  among  others  in  attempting 
to  show  by  an  analysis  of  simple  geometric  figures  that  we  have  a 
natural  taste  for  certain  types  of  figures  as  distinguished  from  others. 
He  was  convinced  however  that  beauty  was  not  a  primary  quality  of 
the  object,  but  has  meaning  only  in  the  relation  of  the  object  to 
the  percipient.  This  is  particularly  true  in  relative  beauty,  where  he 
clearly  saw  the  part  played  by  reflection.  "An  old  Gothic  tower  which 
has  no  beauty  in  itself,  appears  beautiful,  considered  as  proper  to 
defend  against  an  enemy."  Home  devotes  comparatively  little 
space  to  relative  beauty.  Since  it  required  an  act  of  reflection  it  was 
opposed  in  a  degree  to  his  fundamental  position  that  beauty  as  such 
was  immediately  perceived  and  gave  immediate  pleasure. 

Grandeur  he  considered  distinct  from  beauty  by  the  greatness  or 
magnitude  of  the  subject;  agreeableness  is  the  genus  of  which  beauty 
and  grandeur  are  species.  Beauty  is  characterized  by  a  certain 
sweetness  and  gaiety;  in  grandeur  "a  large  object  occupies  the  whole 
of  the  attention,  and  swells  the  heart  into  a  vivid  emotion,  which 
though  extremely  pleasant  is  rather  serious  than  gay."  While  he 
admits  that  in  a  large  work  of  architecture  or  in  an  epic  poem  irregu- 
larities may  not  be  so  noticeable,  he  even  here  upholds  a  classic  notion 
found  in  Longinus,  that  "in  works  of  art  we  have  regard  to  exact 
proportion,  in  those  of  nature  to  grandeur  and  magnificence. "^^ 

A  theory  fundamental  to  Home's  point  of  view  and  one  in  the 
application  of  which  he  claims  originality,  is  considered  under  the 
head  of  "Perception  and  Ideas  in  a  train."  "A  man  while  awake  is 
conscious  of  a  continued  train  of  perceptions  and  ideas  passing  in  his 
mind.  Relations  by  which  things  are  linked  together  have  a  great 
influence  in  directing  the  train  of  thought.  Cause  and  effect,  conti- 
guity in  place  and  time,  high  and  low,  resemblance,  contrast  and  a 
thousand  other  things  connect  things  together  without  end."  This 
"sort  of  law  of  succession,"  the  origin  of  which  he  admits  to  be 
in  Locke,  is  used  by  him  to  explain  our  pleasure  in  what  we  may  call 
classic  beauty.  "We  are  framed  by  nature  to  relish  order  and  connec- 
tion. When  an  object  is  introduced  by  a  proper  connection,  we  are 
conscious  of  a  certain  pleasure  arising  from  that  circumstance."  This 
leads  to  the  following  application:  "Every  work  of  art  that  is  con- 
formable to  the  natural  course  of  our  idea  is  so  far  agreeable;  and 
every  work  of  art  that  reverses  that  course  is  so  far  disagreeable. 

29  Chapt.  IV.    Pp.  110-112. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    23 

Hence  it  is  required  in  every  such  work  that  its  parts  be  orderly 
arranged  and  mutually  connected,  bearing  each  of  them  a  relation  to 
the  whole." 

Home  takes  up  the  question  of  uniformity  and  variety,  which  were 
contained  in  the  traditional  definition  of  beauty,  and  applies  the 
principle  he  has  here  stated.  "A  man,  when  his  perceptions  flow  in 
their  natural  course,  feels  himself  light,  airy  and  easy,  especially  after 
any  forcible  acceleration  or  relaxation.  .  .  .  Nature  not  only  pro- 
vides against  a  succession  too  slow  or  too  quick,  but  makes  the  middle 
course  extremely  pleasant."  Hence  the  value  of  this  theory  of  per- 
ceptions in  a  train,  which  he  held  had  been  too  little  understood; 
according  to  this  theory  variety  as  a  mere  ingredient  of  beauty  is 
shown  to  make  a  train  of  perceptions  pleasant.^^  With  regard  to 
unity  in  variety  as  a  definition  of  beauty,  he  has  this  characteristic 
statement.  "This  definition  is  far  from  being  just  with  respect  to 
beauty  in  general;  variety  contributes  no  share  to  the  beauty  of  a 
moral  action  nor  of  a  mathematical  theorem,  and  numberless  are  the 
beautiful  objects  of  sight  that  have  little  or  no  variety  in  them;  a 
globe,  the  most  uniform  of  all  figures  is  of  all  the  most  beautiful." 

Burke 

Burke's  Essay  on  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful  (1756)  marked  a  very 
definite  contribution  to  the  subject  of  aesthetics.  Carrying  out  a  plan 
already  suggested  perhaps  in  Addison,  as  Morley  suggests,  he  attempts 
to  advance  a  theory  of  art  which  has  its  starting  point  not  in  an 
analysis  of  works  of  art  but  in  a  consideration  of  that  part  of  man's 
nature  which  is  particularly  involved  in  art.  Profiting  by  what  had 
already  been  offered  in  this  field  by  Shaftesbury  and  Dubos  among 
others,  Burke  takes  up  the  discussion  of  passions  and  emotions  as 
being  the  chief  concern  of  art  and  attempts  an  explanation  of  them 
which  would  hold  good  as  much  in  respect  to  nature  and  to  life  as  it 
did  to  art.    Part  I  of  the  Essay  is  devoted  exclusively  to  this  end. 

Burke's  fundamental  contention  with  regard  to  the  emotions  is 
that  both  pleasure  and  pain  are  positive  in  character.  In  this  he  takes 
deliberate  exception  to  Locke,  who  held  that  "the  removal  or  lessening 
of  pain  is  considered  and  operates  as  a  pleasure,  and  the  loss  or 
diminishing  of  pleasure  as  a  pain."^^    In  a  large  class  of  emotions 

«o  Chapt.  IX.  P.  161ff. 

^^  Burke's  footnote  to  I,  sect.  2. 


24 

which  we  consider  to  be  pleasurable  he  finds  that  pain  is  a  necessary 
constituent.  He  chose  to  denote  the  emotions  which  arise  from  this 
mixed  sense  of  the  pleasant  and  unpleasant  as  passions,  such  passions 
producing  the  sense  of  the  sublime.  Where  such  an  element  of  pain 
is  lacking,  where  we  are  attracted  to  the  object  by  reason  of  certain 
agreeable  qualities  in  the  object,  the  effect  in  the  mind  he  considered 
technically  as  emotion,  rather  than  passion,  resulting  from  the 
sense  of  beauty. 

Burke's  theory  of  the  passions  as  involving  an  element  of  what  is 
painful  or  something  analogous  to  it,  is  extremely  important  with 
respect  to  the  influence  which  it  had  upon  German  aesthetic  theory, 
where  for  example  it  was  reinterpreted  in  terms  of  Wolffian  philoso- 
phy by  Mendelssohn  and  entered  vitally  into  Lessing's  theory  of  the 
drama.  Burke  is  himself  not  a  violent  innovator  at  this  point,  his 
theory  bearing  an  intimate  relationship  with  that  of  Dubos  with 
whose  work  he  was  very  familiar,  Dubos  not  only  making  emotion  and 
passion  the  immediate  concern  of  art,  but  attempting  to  explain  simi- 
larly the  pleasure  arising  in  emotions  even  where  these  are  in  them 
selves  unpleasant.  In  many  ways  he  is  seen  to  be  closer  to  Dubos 
than  to  his  English  predecessors. 

The  explanation  for  the  pleasure  in  the  passions  where  pain 
is  involved  rests  on  the  general  position  made  familiar  by  the  moral 
philosophy  of  the  time.  On  this  basis  the  passions  which  turn  on 
danger  or  pain  are  considered  to  be  the  consequence  of  the  natural 
instinct  of  self-preservation^  whereas  "under  this  denomination  of 
society  the  passions  are  of  a  complicated  kind  and  branch  out  into  a 
variety  of  forms  agreeably  to  that  variety  of  ends  they  are  to  serve 
in  the  great  chain  of  society.  The  three  principal  links  in  the  chain 
are  sympathy,  imitations  and  ambition. "^^  From  this  standpoint 
pleasure  in  the  Aristotelian  pity  and  fear  may  be  explained.  Sym- 
pathy or  pity  is  a  sort  of  "substitution  by  which  we  are  put  into  the 
place  of  another  man  affected  in  many  respects  as  he  is  affected.  .  .  . 
It  is  by  this  principle  chiefly  that  poetry,  painting  and  other  affect- 
ing arts  transfuse  their  passions  from  one  breast  to  another  and 
are  capable  of  grafting  a  delight  on  wretchedness,  misery,  and 
death  itself.  "^^  In  this  are  involved  both  a  sense  for  society  and  a 
sense  of  self-preservation. 

32 1,  sect.  12. 
33 1,  sect.  13. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    25 

Burke  is  aware  of  the  common  observation  that  objects  which  in 
reality  would  shock  us,  are  in  tragical  and  such  like  representations 
the  source  of  a  very  high  species  of  pleasure.  But  he  objects  to  the 
explanation  that  such  pleasure  is  to  be  accounted  for  on  the  grounds 
that  the  beholder  realizes  the  story  is  only  a  fiction  or  that  he  is  him- 
self free  from  the  evils  represented,  both  of  which  theories,  he  holds, 
imply  a  more  extensive  influence  of  reason  in  producing  our  passions 
than  he  is  willing  to  admit.  As  is  the  case  with  Dubos,  Burke  seeks  for 
the  explanation  outside  of  art  in  the  normal  experiences  of  men.  He 
is  "convinced  that  we  have  a  degree  of  delight,  and  that  no  small 
one,  in  the  real  misfortunes  and  pain  of  others,"  from  the  fact  that  we 
do  not  shun  such  objects,  but  approach  them.  "Terror  is  a  passion 
which  always  produces  delight  when  it  does  not  press  too  closely; 
and  pity  is  a  passion  accompanied  with  pleasure,  because  it  arises 
from  love  and  social  affection.  Whenever  we  are  formed  by  nature  to 
any  active  purpose,  the  passion  which  animates  us  to  it,  is  attended 
with  delight,  or  a  pleasure  of  some  kind,  let  the  subject-matter  be 
what  it  will;  and  as  our  Creator  has  designed  that  we  should  be 
united  by  the  bond  of  sympathy,  he  has  strengthened  that  bond  by  a 
proportionate  delight;  and  there  most  where  our  sympathy  is  most 
wanted — in  the  distresses  of  others. "^^  Since  this  holds  true  of  actual 
life  he  is  unable  to  attribute  any  considerable  part  of  our  pleasure  in 
tragedy  to  the  consideration  that  tragedy  is  a  deceit,  and  its  represen- 
tations no  realities.  Proof  of  this  is  seen  in  the  fact  than  an  audience 
will  leave  a  theatre  even  where  every  effort  had  been  made  to  produce 
an  illusion,  should  it  be  suddenly  announced  that  a  state  criminal  of 
high  rank  were  on  the  point  of  being  executed  in  the  adjoining  square. 
"In  a  moment  the  emptiness  of  the  seats  would  demonstrate  the 
comparative  weakness  of  the  imitative  arts,  and  proclaim  the  triumph 
of  the  real  sympathy.  I  believe  that  this  notion  of  our  having  a  simple 
pain  in  the  reality,  yet  a  delight  in  the  representation,  arises  from 
hence,  that  we  do  not  sufficiently  distinguish  what  we  would  by  no 
means  choose  to  do,  from  what  we  would  be  eager  enough  to  see  if  it 
was  once  done."^^  The  case  is  further  illustrated  with  the  pleasure  in 
viewing  an  earthquake  or  the  results  of  a  conflagration. 

Burke's  reasoning  here  indicates  a  familiarity  with  Dubos  even 
though  he  differs  from  Dubos  in  his  conclusions.    In  the  discussion  of 

34 1,  sect.  14. 
86 1,  sect.  15. 


26    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

imitation  he  likewise  covers  ground  made  familiar  by  Dubos,  who 
tried  to  show  that  the  value  of  the  imitation  depended  on  the  impor- 
tance of  the  thing  imitated.  ''I  shall  here  venture  to  lay  down  a  rule, 
which  may  inform  us  with  a  good  degree  of  certainty  when  we  are  to 
attribute  the  power  of  the  arts  to  imitation  or  to  our  pleasure  in  the 
skill  of  the  imitator  merely,  and  when  to  sympathy,  or  some  other 
cause  in  conjunction  with  it.  When  the  object  represented  in  poetry 
or  painting  is  such  as  we  could  have  no  desire  of  seeing  in  the  reality, 
then  I  may  be  sure  that  its  power  in  poetry  or  painting  is  owing  to  the 
power  of  imitation  and  to  no  cause  operating  in  the  thing  itself.  So 
it  is  with  the  most  of  the  pieces  which  the  painters  call  still-life.  In 
these  a  cottage,  a  dunghill,  the  meanest  and  most  ordinary  utensils 
of  the  kitchen,  are  capable  of  giving  us  pleasure.  But  when  the  object 
of  the  painting  or  poem  is  such  as  we  should  run  to  see  if  real,  let  it 
affect  us  with  what  odd  sort  of  sense  it  will,  we  may  rely  upon  it, 
that  the  power  of  the  poem  or  picture  is  more  owing  to  the  nature  of 
the  thing  itself  than  to  the  mere  effect  of  imitation,  or  to  a  considera- 
tion of  the  skill  of  the  imitator,  however  excellent.  "^^ 

In  Part  II  of  the  essay  Burke  takes  up  particularly  the 
question  of  the  Sublime.  Dubos  had  held  that  the  first  consideration 
of  poetry  and  art  was  to  excite  the  passions.  Moved  by  logic  rather 
than  experience,  he  had  assigned  a  higher  rank  to  painting  than  to 
poetry  on  the  ground  that  painting  was  able  to  offer  a  clearer  idea  of 
the  thing  imitated.  Burke  not  only  rejects  Dubos'  theory  at  this 
point  but  shows  at  considerable  length  that  the  sublime  is  hostile  to 
the  idea  of  clearness  and  is  rather  concerned  with  such  qualities  as 
magnitude,  obscurity,  power,  privation,  vastness,  infinity  etc.  In 
other  words,  not  clearness  of  idea  but  strength  of  emotion,  not  the 
intellect  but  the  passions.  The  type  of  sublimity  be  it  said  which 
Burke  has  here  in  mind  is  from  the  context  clearly  that  found  in  a 
Miltonian  epic. 

Part  III  has  to  do  with  the  consideration  of  beauty.  By  beauty 
he  meant  "that  quality  or  those  qualities  in  bodies,  by  which  they 
cause  love,  or  some  passion  similar  to  it."  Love  he  considers  in  this 
instance  to  be  free  from  that  element  of  desire  or  lust  which  he  would 
define  as  "an  energy  of  the  mind  that  hurries  us  on  to  the  possession  of 
certain  objects  that  do  not  affect  us  as  they  are  beautiful,  but  by 

^  I.  sect.  16. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    27 

means  altogether  different. "^^  In  other  words  Burke  looks  upon 
beauty  as  a  quality  in  the  object  which  directly  awakens  in  us  a  pleas- 
ing emotion  through  the  medium  of  the  senses,  without  in  any  way 
being  a  creature  of  the  understanding  or  requiring  any  assistance  from 
the  reason.  "The  appearance  of  beauty  as  effectually  causes  some 
degree  of  love  in  us  as  the  application  of  ice  or  fire  produces  ideas  of 
heat  and  cold."^^ 

Beauty  being  an  immediate  source  of  pleasure,  he  dismisses  such 
principles  as  proportion,  fitness,  perfection  etc.,  as  positive  elements 
of  beauty  since  they  are  matters  purely  for  the  understanding,  the 
reason.  His  theory  at  this  point  marks  a  distinct  break  from  the 
rationalistic  position  found  in  Shaftesbury  or  Home  or  as  inter- 
preted by  Diderot.  This  idea  of  proportion  he  thought  "arose  from 
false  reasonings  on  the  effects  of  the  customary  figures  in  animals; 
it  arose  from  the  Platonic  theory  of  fitness  and  aptitude.''^^  ^^Deform- 
ity  is  opposed  not  to  beauty,  but  to  the  complete  common  form.  If 
one  of  the  legs  of  a  man  be  found  shorter  than  the  other,  the  man  is 
deformed,  because  there  is  something  wanting  to  complete  the  whole 
idea  we  form  of  a  man;  and  this  has  the  same  effect  in  natural  faults, 
as  maiming  and  mutilation  produce  from  accidents. "^°  As  to  the  idea 
of  utility  or  fitness  to  an  end,  this  theory  does  not  hold  on  examination, 
as  is  seen  in  the  case  of  the  great  hanging  bill  of  the  pelican  or  the 
swine's  snout,  etc.  "The  effect  of  proportion  and  fitness,  at  least  so 
far  as  they  proceed  from  a  mere  consideration  of  the  work  itself, 
produces  approbation,  the  acquiescence  of  the  understanding,  but  not 
love,  nor  any  passion  of  that  species.  When  we  examine  the  structure 
of  a  watch,  when  we  come  to  know  thoroughly  the  use  of  every  part  of 
it,  satisfied  as  we  are  with  the  fitness  of  the  whole,  we  are  far  enough 
from  perceiving  anything  like  beauty  in  the  watch- work  itself;  but  let 
us  look  at  the  case,  the  work  of  some  curious  artist  in  engraving 
with  little  or  no  idea  of  use,  we  shall  have  a  much  livelier  idea  of 
beauty  than  we  ever  could  have  had  from  the  watch  itself,  though  the 
master-piece  of  Graham.  .  .  .  We  are  rational  creatures,  and  in  all 
our  works  we  ought  to  regard  their  end  and  purpose;  the  gratification 
of  any  passion,  how  innocent  soever,  ought  only  to  be  of  a  secondary 

"  III,  sect.  1. 

88  III,  sect.  2. 

89  III,  sect.  4. 
^  III,  sect.  5. 


consideration.  Herein  is  placed  the  real  power  of  fitness  and  propor- 
tion; they  operate  on  the  understanding  considering  them,  which 
approves  the  work  and  acquiesces  in  it.  The  passions,  and  the  imagi- 
nation which  principally  raise  them,  have  here  very  little  to  do."*^  As  to 
whether  beauty  shall  be  applied  to  virtue,  Burke  again  departs 
decidedly  from  previous  writers.  ''The  general  application  of  beauty 
to  virtue  has  a  strong  tendency  to  confound  our  ideas  of  this  and  it  has 
given  rise  to  an  infinite  deal  of  whimsical  theory,  as  the  afiixing  the 
name  of  beauty  to  proportion,  congruity  and  perfection  has  tended 
to  confound  our  ideas  of  beauty  and  left  us  no  standard  or  rule  to 
judge  by.  This  loose  and  inaccurate  manner  of  speaking  has  therefore 
misled  us  both  in  the  theory  of  taste  and  of  morals,  and  induced  us  to 
remove  the  science  of  our  duties  from  their  proper  basis,  (our  reason, 
our  relations,  and  our  necessities)  to  rest  it  upon  foundations  alto- 
gether visionary  and  unsubstantial."^ 

Having  thus  determined  what  beauty  is  not,  Burke  now  seeks  to 
show  that  "beauty  is  a  thing  much  too  affecting  not  to  depend  upon 
some  positive  qualities.  And,  since  it  is  no  creature  of  our  reason, 
since  it  strikes  us  without  any  reference  to  use,  and  even  where  no  use 
at  all  can  be  discerned,  since  the  order  and  method  of  nature  is  gen- 
erally very  different  from  our  measurements  and  proportions,  we  must 
conclude  that  beauty  is,  for  the  greater  part,  some  quality  in  bodies 
acting  mechanically  upon  the  human  mind  by  the  intervention  of  the 
senses." 

Part  IV  is  an  effort  to  demonstrate  the  "efficient  cause  of  the  sub- 
lime and  beautiful."  It  is  his  aim  "to  determine  what  affections  of  the 
mind  produce  certain  emotions  of  the  body,  and  what  distinct  feeling 
and  qualities  of  the  body  shall  produce  certain  determinate  passions 
in  the  mind,  and  no  other."  Why  this  effect  results,  he  feels  to  be  quite 
beyond  his  purpose  and  in  any  case  impossible  to  determine;  "only  the 
sensible  qualities  of  things  can  be  our  concern." 

The  explanation  which  Burke  develops  is  that  just  as  physical  pain 
results  in  a  sort  of  unnatural  tension  of  the  nerves,  so  fear  and  terror 
also.  "The  only  difference  between  pain  and  terror  is  that  things 
which  cause  pain  operate  on  the  mind  by  the  intervention  of  the  body, 
whereas  things  that  cause  terror  generally  affect  the  bodily  organs  by 

« III,  sect.  7. 
42  III,  sect.  11. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    29 

the  operation  of  the  mind,  suggesting  the  danger;  but  both  agreeing, 
either  primarily  or  secondarily,  in  producing  a  tension,  contraction,  or 
violent  emotion  of  the  nerves,  they  agree  likewise  in  everything  else."*^ 
Thus  he  considers  that  our  minds  and  bodies  are  so  closely  and  inti- 
mately connected  that  one  is  incapable  of  pain  or  pleasure  without 
the  other. 

Since  terror  produces  such  an  unnatural  tension  and  certain 
violent  emotions  of  the  nerves,  anything  producing  passion  similar  to 
terror  produces  a  similar  effect  and  may  therefore  be  a  source  of  the 
sublime. 

That  pain  itself  may  be  a  positive  pleasure  is  explained  in  a  manner 
not  many  removes  from  Dubos,  who  however  is  not  concerned 
with  an  organic  explanation  of  pleasure.  Burke  notes  the  ill 
effects  of  too  great  relaxation  in  the  body  and  the  benefit  which 
arises  from  labor  or  exercise.  Such  labor  however  represents  "a,  sur- 
mounting of  difficulties,  an  exertion  of  the  contracting  power  of  the 
muscles,  and  as  such  resembles  pain,  which  consists  in  tension  and 
contraction,  in  everything  except  degree."  But  he  does  not  stop 
with  the  mere  analogy  and  thinks  it  probable  that  the  same  may  be 
said  of  the  passions  as  well  as  the  higher  powers  of  the  intellect.  Terror 
then  may  be  looked  upon  as  the  exercise  of  the  finer  parts  of  the 
system,  and  where  it  is  not  permitted  to  be  carried  to  the  extent  of 
being  noxious  or  violent,  it  may  be  said  to  produce  a  delightful 
horror,  a  "sort  of  tranquillity  tinged  with  terror."  Its  object  is  the 
sublime. 

His  effort  now  is  to  show  that  certain  visual  objects  are  capable  of 
awakening  something  akin  to  terror,  or  the  sublime.  For  example 
great  dimensions,  vastness  with  unity,  the  infinite,  the  effect  being  to 
bring  about  an  exertion  of  the  nerves  of  the  eye  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  approach  the  nature  of  what  is  pain.  Similarly  he  explains 
darkness,  there  resulting  such  a  contraction  of  the  iris  as  to  make  a 
noticeable  tension  of  the  nerves.  With  respect  to  what  is  beautiful  to 
the  senses,  the  effect  is  quite  the  opposite ;  here  those  things  are  con- 
sidered beautiful  which  cause  no  tension  of  the  nerves,  but  rather  a 
gentle  relaxation  of  the  body,  producing  a  passion  of  love  in  the  mind. 
Such  for  example  are  smoothness,  sweetness,  variation. 

The  last  Part  of  the  Essay  is  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  words, 
where  Burke  clearly  sees  that  words  do  not  bear  an  exactly  analogous 

«IV,  sect.  3. 


30    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

relation  to  the  means  at  the  disposal  of  other  arts.  In  nature  as 
in  painting  there  is  a  connection  between  certain  motions  and 
configurations  of  bodies  and  certain  consequent  feelings  in  our  mind, 
but  words  affect  us  very  differently  than  painting,  nature  or  architec- 
ture. He  comes  then  to  the  conclusion  that  poetry  is  concerned  not  so 
much  with  imitation,  except  in  dramatic  poetry,  as  it  is  with  evoking  a 
feeling  of  sympathy;  it  displays  rather  the  effect  of  things  on  the 
mind  of  the  speaker  or  others  and  does  not  aim  to  present  a  clear  idea 
of  the  things  themselves.  He  finds  it  necessary  then  to  keep  in  mind 
the  distinction  between  a  clear  expression  and  a  strong  expression, 
the  former  being  for  the  understanding,  the  latter  belonging  to  the 
passions  and  as  such  is  the  concern  of  the  poet;  the  one  describes  the 
thing  as  it  is,  the  other  as  it  is  felt.  Thus  words  by  conveying  the 
passions  make  up  for  their  weaknesses  in  other  respects. 

Burke's  theory  of  taste  appears  as  an  introductory  discourse  to  the 
Essay  on  the  Sublime.  Taste  he  defines  as  "that  faculty  or  those 
faculties  of  the  mind  which  are  affected  with  or  which  form  a  judg- 
ment of,  the  works  of  the  imagination  and  the  fine  arts."  The  three 
natural  powers  of  man  that  he  thinks  are  conversant  with  external 
objects,  are  the  senses,  the  imagination  and  the  judgment.  Taste  in 
its  most  general  acceptation  "is  not  a  simple  idea,  but  is  partly  made 
up  of  a  perception  of  the  primary  pleasures  of  sense,  of  the 
secondary  pleasures  of  the  imagination,  and  of  the  conclusions  of  the 
reasoning  faculty  concerning  various  relations  of  these  and  concerning 
the  human  passions,  manners  and  actions.  All  this  is  requisite  to  form 
taste,  and  the  ground-work  of  all  these  is  the  same  in  the  human  mind." 
The  principles  of  taste  do  not  vary,  variation  in  taste  arising  merely 
from  the  differences  in  sensibility  of  people  and  in  their  training  and 
judgment.  In  any  case  he  held,  as  did  Dubos,  that  there  was  "less 
difference  upon  matters  of  taste  among  mankind  than  upon  most  of 
those  which  depend  upon  the  naked  reason."  As  regards  the  theory  of 
the  sixth  sense  Burke  does  admit  that  in  the  passions  and  the  imagi- 
nation the  reason  is  little  consulted  so  that  there  is  the  impression  of 
a  separate  faculty  of  the  human  mind,  but  taste  he  held  was  some  thing 
which  could  be  improved  as  exactly  as  we  improve  our  judgment, 
"by  extending  our  knowledge,  by  a  steady  attention  to  our  object, 
and  by  frequent  exercise." 


THE  FRENCH  MOVEMENT  (continued) 
There  appeared  during  the  18th  century  in  France  three  promi- 
nent thinkers  who  stood  in  direct  opposition  to  the  rationalistic  and 
formalistic  aesthetic  movement  which  we  have  seen  typified  in  the 
writings  of  Boileau  and  Batteux.  These  men  were  Dubos,  Diderot 
and  Rousseau.  Of  these  three  writers  only  Dubos  and  Diderot  will 
be  considered  here.  Admitting  fully  the  importance  of  Rousseau 
in  the  philosophic  and  literary  history  of  the  time,  and  especially  his 
emphasis  on  the  senses  and  "feeling"  as  opposed  to  reason,  one  may 
still  be  at  a  loss  to  detect  any  great  contribution  in  the  way  of  specific 
theory.  Rousseau's  general  position  being  so  well  known  it  is  not 
necessary  to  do  more  than  to  remind  ourselves  of  the  fact  that  his 
thought  and  example  gave  tremendous  weight  to  the  general  move- 
ment which  we  are  here  treating. 

Dubos 

In  his  earlier  days  the  Abbe  l)ubos  was  a  Cartesian  and  a  follower 
of  Perrault,^  but  his  relationship  with  Bayle  was  probably  responsible 
to  a  large  degree  in  preparing  him  for  the  definite  break  which  he 
made  with  this  school.  A  visit  to  England,  where  he  came  into  the 
most  intimate  contact  with  Locke  (1698)  and  where  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Addison  among  others,  was  instrumental  in  bringing 
him  over  completely  into  the  camp  of  the  sensationalists.  The 
Reflexions  critiques  sur  la  Poesie  et  la  Peinture,  which  appeared  in 
1719,2  jg  clearly  grounded  upon  the  empirical  standpoint  of  English 
philosophy. 

The  Reflexions  is  perhaps  the  first  systematic  treatment  of 
aesthetics  in  so  far  as  we  mean  a  theory  of  art  which  aims  to  secure 
the  fundamental  principles  of  the  arts  in  general.  In  keeping  aesthetics 
fairly  free  from  questions  of  morality  and  in  omitting  metaphysical 
considerations  he  differed  from  his  English  predecessors.  The  fact 
that  he  kept  the  issue  clear,  that  his  treatment  was  thoroughgoing 
and  in  harmony  with  the  essential  position  in  the  English  movement, 
were  factors  which  made  his  work  of  great  importance  not  only  in 
England,  but  in  Germany  as  well.     Its  failure  to  secure  a  larger 

^The  apparent  neglect  of  Dubos  in  the  past,  e.g.,  see  Schasler,  Bosanquet,  etc.: 
seems  the  more  remarkable  in  view  of  the  position  which  he  is  coming  more  and  more 
to  have.  Cf.  Stein,  Lombard,  Dubos,  un  Initiaieur  de  la  PensSe  moderne,  Paris  1913, 
etc.    Lombard  if  anything  exaggerates  Dubos'  influence. 

'  Edition  1741  is  here  used. 


32 

following  in  France  has  already  been  largely  accounted  for  in  the 
strength  of  the  traditional  movement,  and  the  explanation  offered  that 
its  literary  style  militated  against  its  acceptance  has  a  certain 
amount  of  weight. 

The  first  problem  which  Dubos  faced  was  to  account  for  the 
emotional  pleasure  in  art  and  drama.  The  point  which  seemed  to 
demand  explanation  was  the  fact  that  we  enjoy  in  art  and  tragedy 
the  depiction  of  those  things  which  are  in  themselves  the  source  of 
displeasure,  a  matter  discussed  among  others  by  Addison.  He  throws 
this  problem  into  boldest  relief  by  considering  the  case  of  gladia- 
torial combats,  bull  fights,  etc.,  where  entire  peoples  were  drawn  to 
witness  the  sufferings  of  others.  The  conclusion  which  he  finally 
reaches  as  an  explanation  of  the  entire  phenomenon  is  that  the  mind 
left  to  itself  suffers  ennui.  "This  feeling  of  ennui  which  results  from 
the  inactivity  of  the  soul  is  an  evil  of  such  a  character  that  one  will 
undertake  even  the  most  extreme  labor  to  escape  this  torment."^ 
It  is  true,  he  adds,  that  the  daily  tasks  to  some  extent  overcome  the 
difficulty,  but  where  this  does  not  suffice, two  ways  are  open:  the 
mind  may  be  occupied  by  serious  thought,  i.e.,  through  philosophy, 
a  resource  closed  to  the  majority  of  people,  or  there  is  the  larger 
possibility  of  emotional  excitement,  which  is  the  field  of  emotional  art. 

Art  and  poetry,  therefore,  offer  the  best  solution  for  this  natural 
ennui  since  by  these  means  the  passions  may  be  aroused  without  at 
the  same  time  exposing  the  beholder  to  the  evil  consequences  of 
what  he  is  witnessing,  and  of  which  for  the  moment  he  is  more  or 
less  a  part.  Thus  art  afforded  a  ''pure  pleasure."^  He  also  stated 
this  positively  by  noting  that  the  mind  had  needs  like  the  body,  e.g., 
the  need  of  "being  occupied."  This  purely  emotional  explanation 
of  the  source  of  pleasure  in  works  of  art  and  poetry  leads  to  a  con- 
clusion, generally  agreed  upon  by  the  critics,  that  Dubos  explains  the 
pathetic,  but  not  the  beautiful.  He  explains  the  "divertissement" 
as  Lombard  puts  it,  but  the  sense  of  beauty  and  the  theory  of  imita- 
tion form  only  a  weak  portion  of  his  theory.  Stein  holds  his  theory 
to  be  more  a  matter  of  pathology  than  a  theory  of  the  passions. 
It  is  in  any  case  an  emphasis  upon  the  "sublime"  rather  than  the 
"beautiful";  it  is  a  question  of  emotional  content  rather  than  form, 

3  1,6. 
*I,  28. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    33 

and  in  so  far  is  widely  divergent  from  the  main  current  of  French 
thought. 

Both  poetry  and  painting  have,  according  to  Dubos,  a  common 
purpose,  namely  to  move  the  beholder,  to  arouse  in  him  through 
artificial  or  imitative  means  the  same  emotions  that  would  have  been 
aroused  by  the  sight  of  the  objects  themselves  which  are  imitated. 
''The  copy  of  the  object  must  so  to  speak  excite  in  us  a  copy  of  the 
passion  which  the  object  itself  would  have  excited."^  Imitation 
therefore  is  only  with  respect  to  the  emotional  content.  Form,  color, 
verse  are  all  subordinate  considerations.  Art  did  not  create  an 
impression  as  strong  as  reality;  it  was  at  best  an  imitation  and  for 
that  reason  weaker  in  effect  than  the  thing  imitated,  an  ''artificial 
being  with  borrowed  life."  It  was  therefore  a  cardinal  doctrine  that 
"in  poetry  and  in  painting  imitations  of  nature  touch  us  only  in 
proportion  to  the  impression  which  the  thing  imitated  would  make 
upon  us  were  we  to  see  it  in  reality."^  From  this  he  may  consistently 
conclude  that  the  "imitation  would  be  unable  to  move  us,  if  the 
thing  imitated  were  incapable  of  so  doing,"'^  which  is  an  argument 
used  to  dispose  of  realistic  genre  paintings  of  the  Teniers  type.  There 
is  nothing  in  a  village  fete,  he  thinks,  or  the  "divertissements  ordi- 
naires  d'un  corps  de  garde"  which  can  move  us.  We  can  at  best 
merely  admire  the  imitative  art  of  the  painter  and  find  fault  with 
him  at  the  same  time  for  a  choice  of  subject  which  can  interest  us  so 
little.  Likewise  still  life  and  landscapes  without  human  figures  were 
considered  as  inferior  to  the  real  purpose  of  art.  "Soyez  toujours 
pathetiques"  was  the  dictum;  "ne  laissez  languir  ni  vos  spectateurs 
ni  vos  auditeurs."  He  reasons  however  that  since  painting  can 
convey  a  clearer  impression  of  the  object,  it  was  on  a  higher  plane — 
a  theory  to  which  Burke  objected. 

The  importance  thus  given  to  the  emotional  content  led  to  the 
conception  that  imitation  was  an  "impression  of  the  passions,"  a 
copy  not  of  the  object,  but  a  "copy  of  the  passion  which  the  object 
would  have  excited."^  In  fact  Dubos  held  to  a  certain  ideal  conception 
of  imitation,  which  took  into  account  that  nature  did  not  after  all 
offer  the  models  for  the  effects  which  he  desired  art  to  produce. 

» I,  25. 
•  I,  54. 
U,  51. 
8 1,  25. 


34    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

"One  must  copy  nature  without  seeing  it.  One  must  be  able  to 
imagine  with  accuracy  what  the  movements  and  circumstances  are 
which  one  has  never  seen."^  The  model  which  the  painter  has 
before  him  can  give  him  only  a  part  of  what  he  wants  to  depict. 
"To  show  love  crossed  by  jealousy  from  a  model  in  repose,  is  no 
longer  to  depict  from  nature.^*^  The  painter  must  add  to  the  object 
in  nature" — and  here  is  a  disappointing  and  yet  illuminating  con- 
clusion— "what  he  knows  from  the  study  of  books(!)  of  the  effect  of 
passions  upon  the  face,  etc."  "Invention"  could  be  defined  then  as 
the  proper  motivation  of  the  passion  depicted.  Dubos  was  clearly 
leaving  the  way  open  for  the  creative  artist  and  he  does  in  one  in- 
stance use  the  term  "create"  with  respect  to  this  "new  nature"  which 
the  poet  and  the  artist  produce.  ^^ 

The  Renaissance  doctrine  of  imitation  of  the  ancients  was  given 
an  interesting  turn  in  that  he  recommended  this  be  carried  out 
with  regard  to  the  spirit, — "in  the  manner,  rather  than  in  direct 
imitation.  "12  j^  showing  that  a  true  imitation  consists  in  the 
adaptation  of  what  has  formerly  been  done  to  the  new  conditions  of 
the  time  in  which  the  artist  is  living,  and  in  considering  Virgil  as  a 
model  of  this  procedure  in  so  far  that  he  had  adapted  Homer  to  his 
own  times,  Dubos  was  not  only  anticipating  Young,  Herder,  etc., 
but  was  giving  clear  evidence  of  the  position  which  "milieu"  was 
beginning  to  take  in  18th  century  thought.  "The  man  of  genius 
divines  how  the  workman  proceeds.  He  sees  him  work,  so  to  speak,  • 
in  looking  at  his  work  and  in  grasping  his  manner;  it  is  in  the  imagina- 
tion that  he  gets  his  booty,"  an  idea  recalling  Renaissance  criticism. 

Dubos  did  not  in  general  confuse  aesthetic  pleasure  by  an  insis- 
tence upon  moral  ends.  For  example  he  ruled  out  dogmatic  poetry 
almost  absolutely,  since  it  made  no  emotional  appeal,  maintaining 
repeatedly  that  poetry  is  read  for  pleasure  and  not  instruction,  and 

•1,208. 

^°  A  striking  resemblance  to  this  passage  is  in  Winckelmann's  essay  on  "Nachah- 
mungen":  "Die  innere  Empfindung  bildet  den  Charakter  der  Wahrheit,  und  der 
Zeichner,  welcher  seinen  Academien  denselben  geben  will,  wird  nicht  einen  Schalter 
des  Wahren  erhalten,  ohne  eigne  Ersetzung  desjenigen,  was  eine  ungeriihrte  und  gleich- 
gUltige  Seele  des  Models  nicht  empfindet,  etc."  In  contrast  to  these  views  Diderot's 
realism  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  he  recommended  that  the  artist  view  the  living  models 
in  the  street  rather  than  the  model  of  the  studio. 

"  I,  24. 

"1,85. 


35 

that  one  ceases  reading  the  moment  the  pleasure  ceases.^^  That  trag- 
edy may  work  to  a  moral  end  he  admits,  and  this  he  thinks  is  what  is 
meant  by  "purgation."  Purgation  he  interprets  in  the  sense  that 
the  spectator  is  made  conscious  of  the  evil  consequences  of  certain 
passions  and  may  be  led  to  be  on  his  guard  in  the  future.  But  this 
moral  end  is  admitted  only  as  a  possibility  and  he  distinctly  states : 
"Let  no  one  understand  me  to  say  that  dramatic  poetry  is  a  sovereign 
and  universal  remedy  in  morality.  I  am  too  far  from  thinking  any- 
thing of  the  kind.  I  only  wish  to  say  that  dramatic  poems  sometimes 
correct  men  and  of  ten  give  them  the  desire  of  bettering  themselves."^* 
The  doctrine  of  "vraisemblance"  played  an  important  part  in 
Dubos'  theory.  From  one  standpoint  he  accepted  the  definition 
of  Aristotle  with  the  significant  distinction  that  he  put  the  weight  on 
passion  instead  of  action.  "One  deserves  the  name  of  poet  in  render- 
ing the  action  which  one  treats  capable  of  moving  us.^^  The  subject 
was  approached  from  another  standpoint  equally  characteristic  for 
Dubos'  thought.  The  ideal  subjects  for  both  poetry  and  art  he 
deemed  to  be  those  taken  from  history,  a  natural  conclusion  in  view 
of  the  practice  of  Corneille  and  Racine,  Poussin  and  LeBrun.  The 
probability  that  he  desired  was  one  with  direct  reference  to  the  partic- 
ular environment  and  age  in  which  the  original  events  took  place. 
From  this  standpoint  vraisemblance  became  associated,  if  not  with 
historical  truth,  at  any  rate  with  the  historical  "milieu."  "Poetic 
vraisemblance  consists  in  giving  the  personages  the  passions  fitting 
their  age,  dignity  and  the  temperament  which  one  gives  them,  as  well 
as  their  particular  interest  in  the  drama.  It  consists  in  the  observa- 
tion of  what  the  Italians  call  il  Costume,  that  is  to  say,  in  bringing 
about  a  conformity  with  what  we  know  of  the  manners  (m^oeurs), 
dress,  buildings  (the  direct  reference  is  clearly  here  to  painting)  and 
the  particular  arms  of  the  peoples  one  wishes  to  represent."^^  "It 
consists  further  in  retaining  the  original  appearance  and  character  of 
the  personages."  That  this  was  the  sense  in  which  Dubos  most 
definitely  considered  vraisemblance  is  seen  in  the  statement  that  we 
"admit  in  a  drama  as  true  the  false  suppositions  which  were  received 
at  the  time  the  actions  took  place,"  thus  clearly  anticipating  the 
confusion   of   historical   truth   and   vraisemblance   which   Voltaire 

"  I,  74. 

"  I,  430. 

«I,251.    Cf.  also  255. 


36    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

supported  particularly  in  the  introduction  to  Semiramis  and  for 
which  he  was  directly  attacked  by  Lessing. 

Dubos  openly  discards  reason  as  a  basis  for  judgment  in  matters  of 
art.  Reason  he  associated  with  an  adherence  to  principles,  a  testing  of 
the  conformity  of  works  with  the  requirements  of  the  rules.  This  he 
completely  does  away  with,  permitting  to  reason  the  sole  task  of 
examination  of  a  work  of  art  after  a  work  has  given  pleasure  and 
taste  is  satisfied.  The  real  test  of  a  work  of  art  consisted  alone  in  the 
effect  it  produced;  if  it  succeeded  in  arousing  pleasure  through  the 
excitement  of  the  emotions,  then  it  was  accredited  a  success,  however 
much  it  may  have  been  in  disagreement  with  the  rules.  Practical 
experience  and  not  the  rules  was  the  guide.  The  man  most  likely  to 
be  chosen  for  the  defense  of  a  city,  he  states  by  way  of  analogy,  was 
not  a  theorist,  not  a  mathematician,  but  a  man  of  experience.^^ 

The  organ  which  he  considered  fitted  to  determine  the  merit  of  a 
work  of  art  was  not  reason,  but  a  "sixth  sense"  which  he  calls  "senti- 
ment." "It  is  the  same  sense  that  would  have  judged  the  objects 
imitated.  For  color  it  is  the  eye.  As  to  whether  the  accent  of  a  recit 
is  touching,  as  to  words  or  melody,  it  is  the  ear.  But  whether  the 
imitation  moves  or  causes  pity — It  is  the  sixth  sense  in  us  although  we 
cannot  see  the  organ  itself.  "^^ 

The  acceptance  of  an  immediate  sense  for  the  merits  of  a  work  of 
art,  did  not  in  any  way  preclude  the  universal  validity  of  this  judg- 
ment. Men  might  easily  differ  with  regard  to  their  reasoning,  their 
philosophy,  but  the  hearts  of  men  remained  very  much  the  same,^^ 
a  position  not  infrequently  taken  by  English  moral  philoso- 
phers with  regard  to  natural  religion.  Dubos  is  directly  concerned 
with  the  overthrow  of  reasoning  from  a  hypothesis,  from  abstract 
principles,  and  is  putting  in  its  place  the  rights  of  the  senses.  This  is 
clear  from  the  following  statement  :^^  "Experience  has  made  men  see 
that  one  is  rarely  deceived  by  a  distinct  report  of  the  senses,  and  that 
the  habit  of  reasoning  and  judging  this  report  conducts  to  a  practice 
that  is  simple  and  sure,  in  place  of  erring  every  day  by  way  of  philoso- 
phy, i.e.,  by  posing  general  principles  and  drawing  from  these  a  chain 
of  conclusions." 

^«  II,  341. 
17 II,  325. 
18 II,  492. 
"  II,  341. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  or  HIS  TIME      37 

The  originality  of  Dubos'  position  is  modified  to  some  extent  when 
we  take  into  account  the  "public"  he  had  in  mind  and  which  he 
considered  as  worthy  judges  of  matters  of  taste.  In  spite  of  his 
arguments  for  the  universal  character  of  the  emotional  nature,  he 
found  no  place  for  the  "kitchen  maids"  of  Moliere  and  in  fact  for 
large  classes  of  people.  He  admitted  a  public  only  which  like  himself 
was  well  versed  in  history,  acquainted  with  ancient  and  modern  art 
and  literature,  in  short  an  educated  and  cultured  public,  grown  up  in 
the  tradition  of  Louis  XIV.  The  requirement  which  he  assumed  as 
necessary  in  this  matter  was  a  "gout  de  comparaison,"  which  is  of 
itself  most  illuminating  with  regard  to  his  position.  "Feeling"  may 
well  be  brought  forward  to  pass  upon  the  universal  values  of  works  of 
art,  provided  one  may  assume  a  background  of  training  and  culture. 
His  virtual  acceptance  of  the  standards  of  this  age  as  well  as  of  classi- 
cal antiquity  shows  that  after  all  he  admitted  a  universal  character  of 
a  definite  sort  in  the  works  themselves  which  good  taste  would  under 
the  proper  conditions  recognize. 

There  still  remains  in  this  intensely  interesting  and  important 
work  of  Dubos  a  consideration  of  his  theory  of  climate,  the  influence  of 
which  was  not  confined  to  Montesquieu  but  was  directly  seen  in  the 
works  of  German  writers,  Winckelmann  in  particular.  Through  this 
theory  of  climate  he  hoped  to  offer  a  solution  for  the  contemporaneous 
appearance  of  great  literary  and  artistic  movements  and  for  the  essen- 
tial variation  in  art  and  literature  both  with  respect  to  time  and  to 
location.  The  explanation  for  these  phenomena  he  finds  not  in  "moral 
causes,"  wherein  he  refers  principally  to  the  attitude  of  princes  towards 
artists  and  poets,  but  in  the  "physical  causes."  Genius  he  considered 
to  be  the  result  of  a  proper  disposition  of  the  "organs  of  the  brain"^*' 
and  the  quality  of  the  blood.  In  so  far  then  as  the  blood  was  itself 
conditioned  by  the  character  of  the  air  he  could  point  to  climate  as 
having  a  positive  effect  particularly  upon  a  growing  child  and  upon 
the  development  of  geniuses.  Thus  it  resulted  that  certain  climates 
were  favorable  to  the  production  of  great  art,  where  other  countries, 
England  for  example,  would  for  ever  be  without  a  native  art,  a  fact 
which  he  believed  was  confirmed  by  the  failure  of  such  men  as  Holbein 
and  Van  Dyck  to  develop  a  school  among  English  artists.  The  very 
character  of  Dutch  art  is  due  to  the  clouded  skies  of  Holland. 


n,52. 


This  entire  theory  he  practically  sums  up  in  the  analogy  of  a 
plant.  "Genius  is  a  plant  which  grows  of  itself,  but  the  quality  and 
quantity  of  its  fruits  are  dependent  upon  the  culture  it  receives. "^i  A 
plant  that  might  grow  to  full  height  in  one  climate  would  be  unable  to 
do  so  if  removed  to  another :  and  similarly  the  best  art  was  confined 
by  necessity  to  warm  climates.  That  periods  of  art  should  vary 
within  the  same  country  is  explicable  on  the  analogy  of  harvests 
which  vary  from  season  to  season  in  accordance  with  the  weather 
conditions. 

This  theory  of  genius  as  the  result  of  the  favorable  arrangements 
of  the  organs  and  the  condition  of  the  blood  is  interesting  not  only 
from  the  emphasis  it  throws  upon  determinative  character  of 
"milieu,"  but  from  the  fact  that  within  this  portion  of  his  work  the 
sixth  sense  is  taken  literally  as  a  special  physical  organ. 

Diderot 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  one  of  the  first  works  which  came  from 
the  pen  of  Diderot  was  a  liberal  transcription  of  Shaftesbury's 
''Inquiry  concerning  Virtue  of  Merit, ^^  appearing  in  1745.  It 
seems  to  be  a  well  grounded  conclusion  that  the  development  of 
Diderot's  aesthetic  views  bore  from  the  first  a  very  interesting  relation 
to  the  theories  of  the  great  English  moral  philosopher. 

While  Shaftesbury  considered  that  beauty  was  characterized  by 
the  harmony  and  proportion  of  Greek  ideal  art,  it  is  true  that  he 
pointed  out  a  certain  relativity  involved  in  beauty  in  so  far  as  the 
individual  object  or  part  might  be  related  to  the  whole.  The  question 
therefore  of  fitness,  of  adaptation  to  an  end,  came  under  consideration, 
a  point  of  view,  as  Burke  later  pointed  out,  which  often  associated 
itself  with  the  notion  of  ideal  perfection.  To  approach  the  subject  of 
beauty  from  the  standpoint  of  the  relation  of  parts  to  a  whole  or  its 
various  modifications  is  to  run  the  risk  of  making  beauty  a  purely 
intellectual  conception,  and  if  stressed  too  exclusively  might  lead  far 
astray  from  the  field  of  beauty  as  such.  Diderot  seems  to  have  done 
something  similar  to  this. 

In  one  of  Diderot's  notes  to  the  Essay  on  Virtue  his  interest  in  the 
aesthetic  aspects  of  this  theory  may  be  noted.  "In  the  universe  the 
duties  we  have  to  fulfill  determine  the  organization.  The  organiza- 
tion is  more  or  less  perfect  according  to  the  greater  or  lesser  facility 

21 II,  43. 


which  the  automaton  has  received  to  perform  its  functions.  For  what 
is  a  beautiful  man  if  it  is  not  he  whose  well-proportioned  members 
conspire  in  the  most  advantageous  fashion  for  the  performance  of  his 
functions."  In  this  connection  he  states  that  monsters  may  be 
depicted  in  art  provided  that  attention  be  paid  to  the  proper  organic 
relations. 

In  that  portion  of  the  article  ^^Beau'^  written  for  the  Encyclopedia 
in  which  he  reviews  previous  theory  on  the  subject  of  beauty,  he 
criticizes  Shaftesbury  for  considering  beauty  as  that  which  is  most 
perfectly  ordered  to  secure  the  effect  proposed,  and  for  holding  that 
behind  the  notion  of  a  maximum  beauty  for  each  species  is  the  idea 
that  beauty  consists  in  the  proper  functioning  of  all  parts.  In  other 
words  Diderot  has  here  caught  only  a  one-sided  view  of  Shaftesbury, 
and  the  very  thing  he  is  here  criticizing,  in  the  end  he  accepts  as  a 
principle  of  art,  if  not  of  beauty,  as  will  be  seen  later.  In  this  connec- 
tion, however,  he  goes  on  to  criticize  Shaftesbury  for  his  conception  of 
perfection,  and  indicates  that  beauty  in  an  animal  is  a  purely  relative 
matter,  the  idea  of  a  horse  differing  from  the  standpoint  of  a  trainer 
and  a  passer-by.  This  general  notion  of  the  essentially  relative  nature 
of  beauty  is  developed  at  considerable  length  in  the  body  of  the 
essay,  and  this  he  considers  to  be  an  original  contribution  to 
the  field,  no  previous  writer  having  attempted  to  define  beauty  and 
the  Germans  in  particular  having  confused  it  with  perfection.^ 
Beauty  is  essentially  a  matter  of  rapport,  relativity.  An 
object  considered  to  be  beautiful  in  itself,  might  not  seem  so 
when  compared  with  other  objects.  I  might  like  an  object  one 
minute  and  not  another.  An  ugly  object  may  contribute  to  beauty 
when  its  proper  relationship  is  understood.  In  short,  the  one  term 
which  remains  permanent  through  the  changing  aspects  of  beauty  is 
rapport,  and  this  very  flexible  term  therefore  is  considered  to  be  the 
thing  we  call  beauty. 

Diderot's  reasoning  leads  him  finally  to  pay  little  attention  to 
beauty  as  such  and  to  admit  into  art  almost  any  element.  Thus 
deformity  he  defends  as  perfectly  proper,  and  he  considers  that  a 
hunchback  is  a  distinct  source  of  pleasure  in  so  far  as  nature  has 
made  the  entire  muscular  formation  of  the  body  to  conform  to  this 
deformity.  This,  it  seems  to  us,  is  a  Shaftesbury  conception  of 
totality  deprived  of  the  finer  sense  for  Greek  beauty.    The  essential 

22  See  Mendelssohn  below. 


40    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

difference  between  the  two  positions  is  more  than  an  essential  diver- 
gence of  ideas;  it  was  temperamental  and  it  was  based  on  a  profound 
difference  in  philosophic  attitude.  Shaftesbury  had  seen  the  universe 
as  a  totality,  an  organism,  so  to  speak,  emanating  from  a  living  spirit 
within,  in  which  everything  was  conceived  as  a  ,  perfection 
inherent  in  the  whole.  Diderot's  earlier  shifting  views  had  gradually 
given  way  from  a  theism  not  unlike  that  of  Shaftesbury's  to  a  belief 
in  a  universe  of  forces  in  which  determinism  of  scientific  law  held 
sway,  and  this  was  applicable  finally  to  man  in  his  relation  to  the 
moral  order.  Every  fact  was  an  evidence  of  world  structure,  of  world 
order,  in  which  human  actions  were  the  resultant  of  forces. 

Such  a  materialistic  point  of  view  led  him  far  away  from  the 
beauty  of  the  classic  ideal.  ''Nature  makes  nothing  which  is  incorrect. 
Every  form,  beautiful  or  ugly,  has  its  cause,  and  of  all  beings  which 
exist,  there  is  not  one  which  is  not  as  it  must  be."^^  Art  seems  there- 
fore to  have  no  other  concern  than  to  make  clear  the  cause  which 
produces  the  effect.  "If  causes  and  effects  would  be  evident,  we 
would  have  nothing  better  to  do  than  to  represent  creatures  just  as 
they  are.  The  more  perfect  the  imitation,  the  more  analogous  to  the 
causes,  the  more  satisfied  we  would  be."  Not  ideal  beauty ,  but  truth 
of  fact,  truth  of  cause  and  effect.  "A  distorted  nose  gives  no  offense 
because  in  nature  everything  shows  causal  relation"  {tout  se  tient). 
Goethe's  commentaries  on  the  Neveu  de  Rameau  of  Diderot,  which  he 
translated,  show  the  essential  divergence  between  a  thinker  of 
Diderot's  type  and  one  who  accepted  the  complete  notion  of  a 
Greek  ideal  beauty.  According  to  Goethe  Diderot  had  failed  to 
distinguish  art  from  nature.^^ 

Diderot's  theories  of  the  drama  represent  in  the  main  an  effort  to 
secure  a  form  of  the  drama  which  would  be  the  surest  vehicle  for 
the  moral  end  he  thought  it  should  have  in  view.  It  is  perfectly  clear 
in  following  Diderot  that  he  had  little  power  of  appreciation  for 
either  tragedy  or  poetry.  "Poetry  requires  something  of  the  enor- 
mous, of  the  barbarous,  of  the  savage. "^^  "Arts  of  imitation  demand 
something  of  the  savage,  the  brutal,  the  striking,  the  enormous."^^ 
"When  is  it  that  nature  prepares  the  models  for  art?     It  is  when 

23  Essai  sur  la  Peinture,  X,  461. 

24  See  Morley,  Diderot  and  the  Encyclopedists. 

25  VII,  371. 

26  X,  502. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    41 

children  tear  each  other's  hair  at  the  bedside  of  a  dying  father,  where 
a  mother  opens  her  breast  and  conjures  her  son  by  the  breasts  he  has 
milked,  or  when  the  friend  cuts  his  hair  and  spreads  it  over  the  body 
of  his  friend.  ...  I  do  not  say  these  moeurs  are  good,  but  they  are 
poetic. '^  He  undertakes  to  advance  his  theory  of  the  drama  not  in  the 
sense  of  a  reform  of  tragedy  or  of  comedy,  both  of  which  fields  he 
deliberately  tries  to  avoid,  but  with  a  positive  aim  in  view,  which  was 
the  creation  of  a  new  and  distinct  form  of  dramatic  art  whose  end  was 
virtue,  morality.  "One  distinguishes  in  every  moral  object  a  middle 
and  two  extremes.  It  seems  that  every  dramatic  action  being  a  moral 
object,  it  would  be  necessary  to  have  a  middle  genre  and  two  extremes. 
We  have  the  two  extremes  in  comedy  and  tragedy,  but  one  is  not 
always  in  joy  or  sadness.  There  is  then  a  point  of  separation  between 
the  comic  and  tragic  genres. "^^  He  shows  then  that  there 
may  be  a  genre  in  which  neither  pity  and  terror  on  the  one 
hand  nor  laughter  on  the  other  may  be  aroused,  but  rather  our 
interest.  ''There  will  be  interest  where  the  subject  is  important, 
where  the  poet  uses  the  tone  we  have  in  our  business  affairs,  and 
where  the  action  advances  by  perplexity  and  embarrassment.  Then 
since  the  actions  are  the  most  common  in  life,  the  genre  which  has 
them  for  its  object  must  be  the  most  useful  and  the  most  extensive. 
I  will  call  this  genre  the  genre  serieux.  "I  repeat  Vhonnete,  Vhonnete! 
It  touches  us  in  a  more  intimate  manner  or  more  sweetly  than  what 
merely  excites  our  contempt  (tragedy)  or  our  laughter  (comedy). 
Pick  this  chord  and  you  will  find  a  resounding  and  a  trembling  in  all 
hearts.  The  parterre  of  comedy  is  the  only  place  where  the  tears  of 
the  virtuous  and  wicked  are  mingled.  There  the  wicked  man  is 
aroused  by  the  injustices  he  might  have  committed,  he  is  indignant 
at  a  man  of  his  own  character.  The  impression  remains.  He  leaves 
the  theatre  less  inclined  to  do  evil,  than  if  he  had  been  harangued  by 
an  orator.    I  wish  that  all  the  arts  might  combine  to  this  end."^^ 

Out  of  this  desire  to  secure  a  proper  conveyance  for  moral  teaching 
grew  his  theory  that  conditions,  professions,  etc.,  {Uats,  conditions) 
should  be  depicted  on  the  stage  rather  than  individual  characters. 
Comedy,  he  thought,  dealt  with  types  or  species,  and  tragedies  with 
individuals.    "There  are  no  longer  characters  to  be  put  upon  the  stage, 

27  VII,  134  ff. 

28  VII,  312. 


42 

but  conditions.  Up  to  the  present  in  comedy,  character  has  been  the 
principal  object  and  conditions  etc.,  accessory.  To-day  conditions 
must  be  the  principal  object  and  character  accessory."  In  other 
words  just  as  he  illustrated  the  case  in  The  Natural  Son  and  The 
Father  of  the  Family,  so  he  believed  that  for  every  profession  and 
station  of  life  there  was  a  possible  drama  and  the  individual  character 
which  was  to  represent  this  particular  Hat  or  condition,  was  the  last 
and  least  consideration. 

In  spite  of  Diderot's  appeal  for  a  kind  of  naturalism,  he  was  never 
willing  to  break  from  the  traditional  form  of  French  dramatic  art. 
A  logical  development  of  his  views  demanded  this.  Germany  did  not 
hesitate  to  take  this  step,  the  Sturm  and  Stress  drama  owing  much  to 
Diderot  after  he  had  been  made  clear  to  them  through  the  efforts  of 
Lessing.  But  it  is  interesting  to  note  with  what  tenacity  he  holds  to 
simplicity  in  the  matter  of  stage  production,  in  the  observance  of 
unities,  and  in  a  stricter  interpretation  of  the  correspondence  between 
the  time  of  stage  production  and  the  time  which  would  have  been 
taken  for  the  events  to  have  transpired  in  actual  life.  His  appeal 
for  the  simplicity  of  Greek  tragedy,  was  based  on  the  theory  that 
the  perfect  illusion  was  thereby  facilitated,  and  from  his  first  attack 
on  stage  production  in  the  Bijoux  Indiscrets  to  the  end  he  favored  an 
effort  to  secure  an  impression  of  real  life,  and  complexity  of  plot  and 
character  he  consistently  opposed  because  it  destroyed  illusion. 

Diderot  devoted  much  time  to  the  study  of  pantomime,  that  is,  to 
the  question  of  emotional  expression  through  gesture,  etc.  His  letter  on 
the  deaf  mutes  was  concerned  largely  with  a  question  of  this  nature. 
He  upheld  a  free  display  of  the  emotions  in  art  and  was  much  more 
concerned  with  this  element  of  stage  production  than  with  the  actual 
words,  as  his  practice  of  going  to  the  theatre  and  following  the 
development  of  the  play  with  ears  closed,  might  well  indicate.^^ 
Out  of  this  same  general  viewpoint  grew  his  theory  of  tableaux  where 
he  favored  the  frequent  grouping  of  the  actors  on  the  stage  so  as  to 
give  a  clear  as  well  as  artistic  picture  of  the  particular  moment.  He 
even  favored  the  view  that  a  poet  should  leave  much  to  the  actor  so 
that  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  would  prompt  him  to  give  free 
expression  to  the  emotion.  The  theory  that  the  actor  should  lose 
himself  to  such  an  extent  in  the  action  that  he  would  be  forgetful  of 

2^  Lettre  sur  les  Sourds  et  les  Muets. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    43 

himself  represents  the  extreme  viewpoint  of  his  earlier  ideas  with 
regard  to  emotional  expression  on  the  stage,  which  was  changed  later  in 
the  Paradoxe  sur  le  Comedien,  because  he  realized  finally  that  acting 
was  a  conscious  art. 

In  painting,  which  he  discusses  at  great  length  in  the  "Salons,"  one 
may  note  the  tendency  already  seen  in  Dubos  to  stress  the  content  of 
the  picture,  i.e.,  the  story,  above  considerations  of  pure  art,  although 
he  was  more  and  more  led  to  see  a  technique  in  color,  in  design,  etc. 
The  historical  group  picture  of  a  LeBrun  was  still  held  in  as  high  repute 
by  Diderot  as  by  his  predecessors.  But  there  is  this  to  be  noted,  that 
he  remained  true  to  his  interest  in  the  moral  issue,  and  was  led  to  see  a 
greater  value  in  paintings  whose  subjects  were  drawn  from  common 
life  than  had  been  the  case  of  Dubos,  whose  theory  of  imitation  was 
hostile  to  genre  painting.  This  is  seen  in  his  favorable  attitude 
towards  Teniers.  Appreciation  for  the  ideal  beauty  of  Greek  art  is 
consistently  lacking. 


THE  GERMAN  MOVEMENT 

The  aesthetic  movement  in  Germany  was  of  a  more  intricate 
nature  than  in  either  England  or  France.  Preceding  Gottsched  and 
the  Swiss,  German  theory  had  been  a  pale  reflection  of  the  various 
French  schools.  With  the  entrance  of  English  influences,  partly 
through  the  medium  of  Bodmer  and  Breitinger  and  even  of  Gottsched, 
the  situation  at  once  took  on  a  complex  nature.  And  it  is  interesting 
that  the  French  movement  had  itself  assumed  a  two-fold  character  and 
was  able  to  furnish  material  to  opposing  camps  in  Germany;  for  the 
struggle  between  Gottsched  and  his  opponents,  which  is  generally 
considered  to  be  a  rivalry  of  French  and  English  ideas  for  mastery  in 
Germany,  was  superseded  by  a  "quarrel"  which  centred  about  the 
writings  of  Batteux  and  in  which  the  opposition  was  fortified  by 
theories  taken  in  part  from  Dubos. 

In  addition  to  these  various  forces  at  play  in  Germaiiy  there  was  a 
fundamental  strain  of  German  thought  which  was  responsible  for  the 
character  of  the  German  contribution  in  this  field  and  which  dis- 
tinguishes it  from  either  the  French  or  English  movements.  This 
proceeded  directly  from  German  philosophy  and  found  its  first 
embodiment  in  the  writings  of  Johann  Gottlieb  Baumgarten.  By 
the  time  of  the  appearance  of  his  first  work,  de  nonnuUis  ad  poema 
pertinentibus  {1735)  Leihnitziein  ipMloso-phy  wsis  not  only  firmly  estab- 
lished, but  the  particular  turn  given  it  by  the  efforts  of  Wolff  had 
directly  opened  the  way  for  the  construction  of  aesthetic  theory. 
Baumgarten's  claim  to  a  pre-eminent  position  in  this  movement  is  in 
taking  this  step  and  initiating  aesthetic  theory  in  Germany  on  a  basis 
of  Wolff-Leibnitzian  philosophy. 

The  origin  of  this  movement  is  to  be  found  ultimately  in  Descartes. 
In  fact  the  full  consequences  of  Cartesian  rationalism  are  to  be  sought 
for  in  Germany  rather  than  in  France.^  It  has  already  been  pointed 
out  that  the  idealizing  tendency  which  the  French  had  inherited  from 
Renaissance  criticism  and  art  had  prevented  in  part  an  immediate 
fruition  of  Cartesian  thought  in  France  and  by  the  time  reason  had 
gotten  full  hold  of  the  "Moderns,"  a  counter  influence  in  Dubos  had 
set  in,  and  the  way  opened  for  English  empiricism.     In  Germany, 

^  See  Dilthey,  Die  drei  Epochen  der  mod.  Aesth.    Deutsche  Rundschau  72:200  ff. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  or  HIS  TIME      45 

where  aesthetic  theory  was  in  part  an  outgrowth  of  philosophy,  the 
case  was  different,  and  it  is  possible  to  observe  the  manner  in  which 
Cartesian  ideas  found  further  development  in  Leibnitz  and  quite  as 
much  in  Wolff,  who  is  more  representative  of  the  Cartesian  manner  of 
thought  than  his  greater  predecessor. 

From  Descartes  Leibnitz  took  over  the  terms  "clear"  and  "dis- 
tinct" as  applied  to  ideas  and  gave  them  a  meaning  which  opened  the 
way  for  their  later  use  in  German  aesthetics.  He  took  into  account 
not  only  the  eternal  truths,  which  were  the  main  interest  of  Descartes, 
but  recognized  the  facts  of  experience — an  old  idea  but  now  fortunate- 
ly resurrected.  "That  idea  is  clear  which  is  surely  distinguished 
from  all  others  and  so  is  adequate  for  the  recognition  of  its  object; 
that  idea  is  distinct  which  is  clear  even  to  its  particular  constituent 
parts  and  to  the  knowledge  of  their  combination.  According  to  this 
the  a  priori,  'geometrical'  or  'metaphysical'  eternal  truths  are  clear 
and  distinct ;  while  on  the  other  hand  the  a  posteriori,  or  the  truths  of 
experience  are  clear,  indeed,  but  not  distinct."^  Through  the  senses 
man  is  able  to  gain  a  certain  total  impression  of  things  which  is 
called  a  "clear"  idea.  For  an  object  to  be  more  than  "clear,"  that  is, 
for  an  object  to  be  "distinct,"  it  is  necessary  for  the  mind  to  grasp 
every  detail  with  the  same  distinctness  it  does  the  whole  and  to  be 
conscious  of  all  the  relationships.  Manifestly  with  the  limitations  of 
the  human  mind  many  objects  will  never  be  more  than  "clear," 
and  while  admitting  this,  Leibnitz  still  insists  that  the  chief  aim  of 
the  soul  is  in  the  direction  of  "distinct"  ideas.  We  find  therefore  the 
use  of  the  terms  "clear"  and  "confused"  to  indicate  the  objects  of 
sense  where  a  "clear"  totality  is  necessarily  made  up  of  "indistinct" 
parts. 

The  German  philosophic  movement,  following  the  tendency  of  the 
time,  began  to  give  increasingly  positive  value  to  the  facts  of  experi- 
ence and  to  accept  less  apologetically  the  "confused"  impression  of 
things.  In  this  respect  Wolff  marked  an  advance  over  Leibnitz, 
showing  the  influence  of  the  English  empiricists.  Baumgarten, 
following  him,  accepted  "confused"  ideas  as  the  particular  realm  of 
poetry  and  in  so  doing  took  a  step  which  gradually  permitted  German 
theory  to  break  away  from  the  rationalistic  tendency  which  was 
prevailing.  It  is  at  this  point  that  Mendelssohn,  as  opposed  to  Sul- 
zer,  became  the  immediate  successor  of  Baumgarten. 

2  Windelband-Tuf ts,  History  of  Philosophy. 


46    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

Leibnitz'  theory  of  the  monad  found  its  way  equally  into  the 
aesthetic  discussion  of  the  time.  According  to  Leibnitz  the  sole 
activity  of  the  monad,  or  let  us  say,  soul,  consisted  in  what  Leibnitz 
called  representations.  The  universe  he  conceived  quite  similarly 
to  Spinoza  as  a  whole  in  which  all  parts  were  involved,  each  part 
being  a  complete  representation  of  the  whole.  Leibnitz  however 
considered  the  universe  as  made  up  of  "immaterial  forces,"  or  thought 
activity.  Soul  life  consisted  then  in  a  gradual  awakening  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  those  ideas  which  reveal  its  position  in  the  universe;  not 
acquisition  from  without  but  unfolding,  developing  of  latent  powers 
within.  The  life  of  the  soul  was  the  exercise  and  development  of  its 
function  of  perception  or  thought.  The  very  act  of  perception  gives 
pleasure  to  the  soul  in  so  far  as  it  assists  in  the  exercise  or  evolution 
of  the  monad  from  confused  to  distinct  ideas. 

The  terminology  thus  brought  into  favor  in  Germany  by  Leibnitz, 
was  given  even  greater  carrying  power  by  Wolff.  With  greater 
definiteness  than  Leibnitz,  Wolff  points  out  the  positive  character  in 
the  "dark,  confused"  ideas.  He  believed,  for  example,  that  the 
"confused  ideas,"  which  represented  the  contribution  of  the  senses, 
would  in  the  end  confirm  the  distinct  ideas  attained  through  the 
reason,  both  being  two  means  of  arriving  at  the  same  end.  However 
he  still  tended  to  consider  these  "dark  faculties,"  (literally  "lower 
faculties,")  as  inferior. 

Baumgarten  takes  the  step  of  considering  "confused  ideas"  as  the 
essential  field  of  poetry  and  builds  up  the  theoretical  portion  of  his 
aesthetics  on  this  basis.  From  now  on  for  several  decades  the 
"lower  faculties,"  "dark  faculties,"  "dark,"  "confused,"  "clear," 
"distinct  ideas"  are  accepted  as  the  technical  language  of  an  impor- 
tant group  of  writers  on  aesthetics.  This  is  quite  as  true  of  the  use  of 
"Vorstellung"  and  "VoUkommenheit."  Since  these  writers  accepted 
"confused  ideas"  as  the  field  of  aesthetic  pleasure  it  was  natural  that 
they  would  take  into  account  a  theory  of  "Vorstellung,"  i.e.,  a  theory 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  mind  secures  ideas  or  representations. 
This  was  the  inheritance  from  Leibnitz  and  this  entire  school  had  one 
distinct  aim  in  view,  to  show  that  the  thought  processes  involved  in 
securing  "ideas"  of  poetry  and  art,  as  in  the  case  of  other  "ideas" 
was  consistent  with  the  fundamental  notion  that  there  was  one 
ultimate  faculty  of  the  human  soul,  namely  that  of  securing  of  "Vor- 
stellungen,"  "representations,"  "ideas."  Hence  the  opposition  later  to 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  oe  his  time    47 

followers  of  Hutcheson  in  Germany  with  their  three  fundamental 
faculties  or  departments  of  the  human  soul.  This  is  what  both 
Mendelssohn  and  Herder  had  in  mind  when  they  criticized  writers 
in  France  and  England  for  not  having  a  knowledge  of  German  phi- 
losophy. The  first  consideration  of  German  theory,  therefore,  as  far 
as  the  immediate  followers  of  Baumgarten  were  concerned  was  not 
formal,  objective,  but  subjective,  considering  first  of  all  the  manner 
in  which  the  mind  secures  ideas  of  beauty.  At  just  this  point  Winckel- 
mann's  ideas  proceeding  from  the  standpoint  of  objective  art,  as  far  as 
sculpture  is  concerned,  occupy  a  distinctly  different  field. 

Baumgarten^ 

Bauingarten's  most  famous  work,  the  "Aesthetica,"  was  begun  in 
1750,  although  the  essential  standpoint  with  regard  to  aesthetics  was 
already  a  part  of  his  earlier  work  where  we  find  his  famous  definition 
of  beauty  in  the  terms  of  the  Wolffian  school:  'Toema  est  oratorio 
sensitiva  perfecta."  Baumgarten's  theory  does  not  take  into  account 
any  of  the  arts,  confining  itself  merely  to  poetry,  and  he  follows  the 
theoretical  portion  of  his  work  with  a  sort  of  poetics  where,  quite 
oblivious  to  his  original  standpoint,  he  accepts  much  of  Latin  theory 
as  a  basis  for  poetic  creation.  This  latter  portion  was  without 
influence,  the  theoretical  conception  which  considered  aesthetics  as  a 
science  being  that  portion  which  bore  fruit. 

The  use  of  the  term  sensitiva  in  his  definition  of  poetry  needs 
explanation.  Stein  takes  this  up  with  considerable  fullness.  "Con- 
fused" representations,  not  ''distinct"  representations,  are  the  field  of 
poetry.  "Deutliche,  vollstandige,  entsprechende,  griindliche  Vor- 
stellungen  sind  nicht  sensitiv."*  Baumgarten  implies  a  sort  of 
fullness  and  richness  in  what  is  presented  to  the  senses.  While  it  is  of 
the  nature  of  sensuous  representations  to  be  "confused"  it  does  not 
follow  that  they  are  for  that  reason  obscure.  The  details  to  be  sure 
may  be  indistinct,  but  the  impression  of  the  whole  must  be  clear. 
This  Baumgarten  called  extensive  clear  as  opposed  to  intensive  clear, 

3  Stein,  Die  Entstehung  der  neueren  Aesthetik.  Hettner,  Gesch.  d.  Lit.  des  18. 
Jhs.  IV,  74.  Justi,  Winckelmann,  Seine  Werke  und  seine  Zeitgenossen.  Leipzig, 
1866.  Sommer,  Die  poetische  Lehre  Alexander  Gottlieb  Baumgartens,  Miinchen, 
1911.    Baumgarten,  Aesthetica. 

*  Stein. 


48    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  or  his  time 

or  distinct.  The  former  is  the  science  of  aesthetics,  the  latter  is 
aesthetic  pleasure.  Baumgarten's  contribution  is  at  this  point,  i.e. 
he  makes  sensuous  perception  the  sole  basis  for  an  aesthetic  theory. 

Sensitiva  has  the  further  meaning,  namely  that  of  arousing  the 
emotions.  Afectus  mover e  est  poeticum.  It  is  at  this  point  that 
Baumgarten  is  considered  to  evidence  the  immediate  influence  of 
Dubos,  with  whose  work  we  know  he  was  acquainted.  While  this  is 
not  to  be  denied,  the  critics  seem  not  to  take  sufl&ciently  into  account 
that  the  position  which  Baumgarten  takes  toward  the  question  of  the 
emotional  effect  is  one  quite  different  in  nature  from  that  of  Dubos. 
Or  perhaps  it  may  be  correct  to  say  that,  convinced  of  the  value  of  the 
emotional  excitement  in  poetry,  Baumgarten  attempts  to  account  for 
this  along  lines  set  down  by  Leibnitz  and  Wolff.  As  did  Leibnitz,  he 
recognizes  the  pleasure  that  comes  to  the  soul  in  the  act  of  represen- 
tation, or  securing  **ideas,"  but  he  puts  particular  emphasis  on  the 
pleasure  which  arises  from  grasping  a  perfection  through  the  lower 
senses,  by  the  fact  that  the  mind  through  this  means  gains  a  truth  not 
accessible  through  the  upper  faculties.  According  to  Stein,  Baum- 
garten goes  further  with  this  idea  by  showing  that  a  poet  gives  more 
than  he  really  represents,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  reader  finds  more 
in  a  poem  than  is  actually  represented.  Poetry  is  not  merely  descrip- 
tion, but  works  through  images,  through  visualizations.  Through 
the  suggestion  of  the  image  we  grasp  the  content.  The  image  is 
suggestive  of  the  larger  thought.  This  being  true,  the  pleasure  of 
poetry  comes  in  the  fact  that  it  makes  accessible  through  art  a  truth, 
by  a  symbolism  if  you  will,  not  otherwise  possible.  Whether  or  not 
Baumgarten  is  subject  to  this  interpretation,  there  is  no  doubt  of  the 
fact  that  theoretically  he  accepted  at  its  full  value  the  positive 
emotional  element  in  poetry  and  tried  to  explain  it  on  a  Leibnitzian 
basis. 

Involved  in  this  conception  of  the  pleasure  in  art  is  the  notion 
that  the  work  of  art  is  perfect.  The  unity  of  the  parts  must  be  clear, 
in  order  that  the  "idea"  of  the  whole  may  be  clearly  conveyed 
through  the  senses.  In  a  poem  Baumgarten  considered  this  unity  in 
the  sense  of  a  central  theme,  a  single  thought,  a  single  purpose.^ 
As  the  work  progresses,  so  the  theme  reveals  itself,  just  as 
in  nature  the  plan  of  the  Creator  gradually  reveals  itself.    Nature  is 

5  These  terms  are  so  defined  by  Stein. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    49 

an  extensive  (that  is  to  the  senses)  clear  impression  of  the  divine  plan. 
The  poet  may  be  said  to  proceed  likewise  in  putting  in  extensive 
clear,  that  is,  sensuous  form,  his  idea.  In  so  far  the  poet  corresponds 
to  the  great  Creator. 

Beauty  is  perfection  within  the  realm  of  sense  perception.  In  deal- 
ing with  perfection  Baumgarten  tended  to  throw  the  stress  upon  the 
subjective  element  and  consider  less  the  formal  attributes  of  objects. 
In  any  case  it  is  significant  to  note  that  instead  of  considering  unity  in 
variety,  fitness,  uniformity,  simplicity  etc.,  as  the  essential  character 
of  beauty,  which  were  the  heirlooms  of  the  classic  conception  of  art> 
he  offered  quite  different  categories,  which  take  more  directly  into 
account  the  sensation  itself  and  the  content.  His  requirements  are  as 
follows:  Uebertas,  fullness,  abundance;  Magnitudo,  significance; 
Veritas,  aesthetic  truth,  rather  than  intellectual  truth;  claritas,  or 
lux,  concerned  with  light,  shade,  coloring  etc.,(  these  two  mean  a  full, 
complete  expression);  certitudo,  and  vita,  animation.  Lux  has  to  do 
with  the  manner  of  expression,  i.e.,  form,  and  vita  with  the  content. 

Baumgarten's  purpose  was  clearly  an  effort  to  offer  a  theory  of 
aesthetics  which  would  be  in  harmony  with  Leibnitzian  philosophy. 
Whatever  theory  he  may  have  taken  from  Dubos  and  others  was 
made  to  conform  to  this  viewpoint.  It  meant  in  fact  that  Baumgar- 
ten considered  aesthetics  as  a  part  of  psychology  and  it  is  for  this  that 
he  is  praised  by  Herder.  The  weakness  of  the  Aesthetica  is  that  it 
confined  itself  to  poetry  and  attempted  to  look  upon  aesthetics  both 
as  a  science  and  as  a  school  for  the  poet,  both  of  which  weaknesses 
are  pointed  out  later  by  Herder.  Its  strength  lay  in  the  positive 
attitude  towards  the  so-called  "lower  faculties,"  in  seeing  that  poetry 
accepted  sensuous  ideas  as  its  special  field. 

SULZER 

Sulzer  and  Mendelssohn  were  the  immediate  successors  of  Baum- 
garten. Sulzer's  first  real  contribution  to  aesthetics  appeared  within 
the  first  two  years  following  the  appearance  of  Baumgarten's  Aesthet- 
ica, the  occasion  being  his  admittance  to  the  Academy  at  Berlin, 
At  that  time  aesthetics  was  for  him  practically  a  new  field.  His  early 
plan  to  engage  in  the  ministry  was  abandoned  shortly  after  his 
ordination,  and  from  the  days  of  his  schooling  at  the  Akademischen 
Gymnasium  at  Zurich  until  the  late  40's  his  interests  were  confined  to 
natural  science  and  to  philosophy,  in  which  there  was  at  all  times  a 


50    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

strong  moral  tendency.  His  conversion  to  Wolffian  philosophy  took 
place  during  his  academic  days,  at  a  time  when  he  was  in  intimate 
personal  relations  with  Gessner.  The  didactic  tendency  which  we  are 
wont  to  look  for  in  the  Swiss  revealed  itself  in  a  striking  manner  in 
1746  when  he  proposed  a  system  of  education  in  which  both  philo- 
sophy and  science  were  to  be  subordinated  to  the  development  of  the 
*'man"  and  offered  a  system  based  on  the  development  of  "clear 
ideas"  which  should  begin  with  the  earliest  childhood. 

The  "Versuch  iiber  die  angenehmen  und  unangenehmen  Empfind- 
ungen"  was  his  first  and  perhaps  most  important  contribution  in  the 
field  of  aesthetics  before  the  appearance  of  his  AUgemeine  Theorie 
(1772),  on  which  his  fame  finally  rested.  It  was  an  attempt  to  explain 
the  nature  of  all  pleasure,  aesthetic,  moral  and  intellectual,  and  to 
show  that  this  pleasure  is  due  to  a  single  fundamental  faculty  of  the 
human  soul.  This  effort  he  considered  original.  He  noted  that 
Wolff  had  developed  the  so-called  intellectual  faculties  of  the  soul, 
but  neither  he  nor  Descartes  had  shown  that  the  origin  of  all  pleasant 
and  unpleasant  sensations  lies  in  the  one  fundamental  impulse 
(Grundtrieb)  of  the  human  soul.  Instead  of  emphasizing  the  essen- 
tial differences  of  the  intellectual  and 'aesthetic  pleasure,  as  Baumgar- 
ten  had  in  reality  done,  Sulzer  attempts  to  explain  everything  by 
what  is  in  fact  an  intellectual  principle  inherent  within  the  soul,  which 
leads  him  ultimately  to  a  form  of  rationalism  scarcely  equalled  by  any 
of  his  contemporaries.  He  does  not  ignore  the  distinction  of  distinct 
and  confused  ideas,  nor  does  he  hold  that  these  two  notions  will  be 
harmonized;  the  pleasure  in  perceiving  an  object  will  never  cease  to  be 
a  pleasure  in  ''confused  ideas."  But  all  reduces  itself  finally  to  the 
fact  that  the  soul  in  exercising  its  function  of  thought  or  perception 
(Vorstellung)  finds  pleasure  wherever  a  variety  is  made  accessible  by 
reason  of  an  essential  unity. 

Pleasure  or  displeasure  is  explained  as  a  question  of  freedom  or 
hindrance  experienced  by  the  mind  in  exercising  its  faculty  of  cogni- 
tion. Where  no  obstacle  is  present,  the  soul  enjoys  satisfaction, 
rather  than  pleasure.  Compared  to  a  state  of  hindrance  this  would  be 
pleasure.  Pleasure  is  not  merely  the  absence  of  hindrance,  but 
results  when  the  soul  is  aroused  to  its  full  activity.  An  unobstructed 
impression  of  many  things  at  once  would  lead  to  such  a  pleasure. 
The  mind  notes  a  larger  ''nourishment"  and  with  it  comes  the  desire 
to  centre  upon  this.    The  moment  the  desire  is  satisfied  or  ceases, 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    51 

pleasure  falls  back  to  the  mere  sense  of  satisfaction  (Gef alien). 
Thus  pleasure  is  an  extraordinary  condition  of  the  soul  which  experi- 
ence must  satisfy.  The  only  way  in  which  the  mind  can  grasp  a 
number  of  objects  easily,  without  hindrance,  is  when  there  is  an 
arrangement,  such  that  they  all  bear  a  relation  to  the  whole. 
Obviously  pleasure  is  made  to  consist  in  the  grasping  of  a  totality, 
and  not  in  the  detail. 

Pleasures  he  divides  into  three  classes :  the  pleasures  of  the  senses, 
the  pleasures  of  the  heart  (morality),  and  the  intellectual  pleasures. 
Since  all  pleasures  are  in  the  end  due  to  the  intellectual  faculty  of  the 
soul,  he  treats  this  first,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  under  this 
category  he  considers  beauty. 

1.  Beauty  is  accepted  as  unity  within  multiplicity.  It  is  in  the 
main  objective.  He  notes,  for  example,  that  it  was  first  applied  to 
objects  of  sight^  but  is  equally  applicable  to  what  is  received  by  the 
other  senses.  This  includes  poetry,  since  imagination  he  holds  to  be 
only  a  supplement  to  the  senses.  ''There  are  innumerable  objects 
which  are  called  beautiful  and  which  belong  neither  to  the  imagination 
nor  the  senses.  They  are  presented  to  the  understanding  through 
distinct  conceptions  (Begriffe).  These  objects  are  composed  of 
a  number  of  ideas  which  united  form  a  beautiful  whole.  Of  such 
nature  is  a  beautiful  theorem  (Lehrsatz),  a  beautiful  thought,  a 
beautiful  system,  a  beautiful  drawing,  a  beautiful  character, 
a  beautiful  action.  In  mechanics,  in  the  plan  of  the  world,  in  the 
marvelous  adaptation  of  its  parts,  and  in  the  sciences,  there  is  to  be 
found  this  kind  of  beauty  which  I  call  intellectual  beauty."  For  the 
unity  here  involved  he  suggests  the  term  interest.  On  such  a  basis  it 
is  not  strange  that  he  made  the  "passions  for  the  arts  and  the  passions 
for  geometry"  analogous. 

Of  the  two  elements  of  unity  and  variety  he  puts  much  the  greater 
emphasis  upon  the  latter.  Thus  in  science  and  philosophy  the  greater 
the  diversity  of  facts  comprehended  in  the  unity,  the  greater  the 
beauty.  *'A  work  of  art  is  the  more  beautiful,  the  more  perfect  it  is, 
the  more  parts  it  has  and  the  more  these  parts  contribute  to  a  pur- 
pose." From  this  standpoint  he  proceeded  to  a  purely  quantitative 
application  to  art.  A  simile  he  thought  less  beautiful  than  an  allegory 
and  a  drama  less  beautiful  than  an  epic  purely  on  the  basis  of  the 
number  of  facts  thus  unified. 

*  Cf .  Home,  Herder.  v 


52    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

Since  taste  is  intellectual  in  character,  it  follows  that  a  variation 
of  taste  will  be  due  to  the  ability  of  the  individual  mind  to  grasp 
unity  in  a  totality  presented.  Sulzer  goes  into  an  extended  considera- 
tion of  this  point  wherein  the  question  of  environment,  of  education, 
early  training,  of  opportunity  are  made  responsible  for  the  varying 
intellectual  development  among  men,  in  consequence  of  which  arises 
a  variation  in  the  appreciation  of  beauty.  ''Trained  to  an  apprecia- 
tion of  Watteau  or  Wouwerman,  one  will  find  little  pleasure  in  lesser 
painters."  He  has  much  to  say  further  regarding  the  relativity  of 
our  judgments,  due  to  the  association  of  ideas,  wherein  he  shows  how 
our  ideas  may  be  affected  by  earlier  impressions  or  by  circumstances, 
all  of  which  at  the  moment  may  rise  to  the  point  of  consciousness. 
Our  dislike  for  a  person  or  a  picture  or  a  peculiarity  in  judgment  is 
thus  traceable  to  early  impressions.^  It  is  to  be  noted  however  that 
in  spite  of  the  reasons  which  are  thus  assigned  for  a  variation  of 
taste,  he  held  most  strictly  to  the  notion  of  fixed  and  universal 
standards.  It  was  a  question  merely  of  overcoming  the  restrictions  of 
one's  environment.  Men  thoroughly  traveled  should  arrive  at  such 
a  standard  of  judgment.  Artists  of  varying  taste  would  ultimately 
agree  if  fully  informed  of  the  laws  and  conditions  of  their  art. 

2.  The  question  of  the  merely  sensuous  pleasures  Sulzer  attempts 
to  explain  upon  a  purely  physical  basis.  The  nerves  being  affected  by 
impressions  from  without  carry  to  the  soul  an  impression  that  is 
analogous  to  the  one  received.  The  senses  differ  only  as  the  nerves 
differ,  each  group  of  nerves  being  so  located  and  so  sensitized  as  to 
receive  only  its  proper  sensations — this  from  a  quantitative  standpoint. 
The  finer  the  sense  the  less  its  emotional  value,  hence  the  following 
order:  sight,  hearing,  smell,  taste,  touch. 

The  theory  which  follows  is  based  undoubtedly  upon  the  mathe- 
matical theory  of  music  popular  at  the  time^  and  applied  by  analogy 
to  the  other  senses.  The  nerves  he  thought  were  in  no  case  affected 
by  a  single  prolonged  stroke,  but  by  a  series  of  individual  strokes  or 
beats.  A  regular  succession  of  such  strokes  would  produce  a  single 
tone.  The  rapid  succession  of  the  strokes  or  beats  which  occur  in  a 
high  tone  gives  greater  pleasure  than  the  slower  succession  in  low 
tones,  by  the  increased  activity  which  it  brought  the  soul.    Too  high 

'  This  fact  is  taken  over  by  Herder. 

*  Cf.  Euler,  Dalembert,  Diderot,  etc.    Sulzer  met  Euler  in  Berlin  in  1746. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time     53 

or  too  low  would  be  disagreeable.  In  the  matter  of  combinations  of 
tones,  he  tried  to  diagram  for  the  eye  the  mathematical  or  rhythmical 
grouping  of  beats  that  would  be  experienced  when  a  harmonious 
combination  of  tones  is  struck,  as  for  example  the  common  chord 
of  C.  In  this  fashion  he  found  it  possible  to  uphold  his  theory  con- 
sistently that  the  soul  finds  pleasure  in  its  ability  to  grasp  an  orderly 
arrangement  of  objects  or  impressions.  But  the  pleasures  of  the 
senses  he  considered  below  those  of  the  intellect,  partly  for  the  reason 
that  they  are  enjoyed  less  in  memory  and  therefore  cannot  be 
restored  readily  to  the  imagination. 

The  three  different  methods  of  grasping  beauty  are  therefore, 
according  to  Sulzer,  through  the  senses,  through  the  imagination  and 
through  the  intellect.  The  intellectual  beauty  is,  we  may  say,  the 
beauty  of  content.  The  sensuous  beauty  is  the  beauty  of  colors, 
figures,  symmetry,  harmony,  melody — and  for  the  latter  beauty  he 
sought,  as  has  just  been  shown,  to  give  an  explanation  based  on  the 
physics  of  these  senses.  Admitting  that  the  senses  other  than  sight 
give  pleasure,  he  excludes  them  from  the  realm  of  ''beauty"  because 
they  give  only  "confused  ideas,"  which  again  makes  clear  his  funda- 
mental theory  of  the  one  principle  within  the  human  mind.  The 
imagination  was  not  taken  as  a  distinct  field,  but  was  considered  a 
supplement  to  the  senses,  as  Herder  did  later. 

3.  Of  the  three  classes  of  pleasures  Sulzer  gives  the  position  of 
pre-eminence  to  moral  pleasures.  His  position  is  in  the  main  in 
harmony  at  this  point  with  Shaftesbury  and  the  English  moralists. 
He  considers  the  taste  for  the  sensuous,  the  taste  for  the  beautiful 
(intellectual)  and  the  taste  for  the  good  as  "the  three  graces  with  a 
common  mother."  And  he  states  that  virtue  can  be  nothing  else  than 
a  facility  (Fertigkeit)  in  furthering  the  happiness  of  one's  self  and 
others.  "This  is  not  a  question  of  judgment,  nor  custom,  nor  educa- 
tion, but  these  selfish  and  altruistic  tendencies  are  implanted  in  us. 
One  virtue,  one  morality."  In  its  natural  state  the  essential  impulses 
of  the  soul  produce  a  taste  for  the  beautiful  and  the  good,  and  man  is 
happy.  The  great  interest  of  man  consists  in  listening  to  the  voice  of 
nature  which  calls  him  to  the  beautiful  and  the  good." 

While  Sulzer  conceives  of  the  superior  rank  of  moral  pleasures, 
and  seems  to  suggest  a  moral  sense,  he  actually  goes  back  to  the 
intellectual  explanation  of  the  source  of  moral  pleasure,  and,  it  is 
important  to  note,  does  not  here  discuss  aesthetic  pleasure  as  further- 


54    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

ing  the  cause  of  morality.  Man's  happiness  consists  ultimately  in 
adjusting  himself  as  an  individual  to  the  demands  of  society.  The 
pleasure  of  the  mind  consists  therefore  in  properly  grasping  this 
relationship.  What  might  be  a  pleasure  for  the  moment  would  cease 
to  be  so  when  viewed  with  regard  to  society  or  to  possible  conse- 
quences. Much  of  this  is  suggestive  of  Shaftesbury.  "As  soon  as  a 
man  has  accustomed  himself  to  see  other  men  as  a  part  of  himself, 
then  he  becomes  a  friend  of  society,  and  gets  pleasure  in  its  welfare. 
There  is  a  pleasure  for  each  kind  of  life  and  each  position  or  profes- 
sion."^ That  is,  one  may  always  feel  himself  part  of  a  smaller  group. 
Thus  moral  pleasures  are  more  universal  and  immediate  than  intel- 
lectual pleasures  and  they  have  the  further  advantage  in  being 
stronger  in  their  effect  upon  us. 

On  the  whole  then  Sulzer  has  ranged  the  three  types  of  pleasure 
side  by  side,  and  has  tried  to  show  that  the  pleasure  which  the  mind 
ultimately  secures  in  intellectual,  sensuous  and  moral  matters  is  due 
primarily  to  the  fact  that  they  engage  the  mind  and  offer  it  a  large 
number  of  facts  and  in  a  manner  that  enables  the  mind  to  grasp 
easily  the  totality  presented,  and  thus  add  these  facts  to  its  posses- 
sion. He  has  in  reality  distinguished  beauty  of  content  from  beauty 
of  form  but  has  sought  to  subject  the  latter  to  the  same  original 
principle  which  he  has  offered  to  explain  the  former.  The  strong 
rationalistic  element  is  evident. 

After  the  writing  of  this  first  work,  Sulzer  came  into  active  touch 
with  Mendelssohn  and  from  that  time  the  writings  of  the  two  men 
show  a  reciprocal  influence. 

In  1759  Sulzer  took  up  the  "Erklarung  eines  Paradoxes,  etc.,"  the 
paradox  which  had  appeared  in  the  first  essay,  namely  that  man  acts 
and  passes  judgment  often  without  incentive  (Antrieb)  and  without 
any  visible  reason.  His  explanation  is  based  upon  the  distinction  of 
clear  and  dark  ideas,  in  which  he  has  recourse  to  the  well  known 
example  of  a  picture  in  which  the  whole  is  clear  to  the  beholder,  but 
the  individual  parts  in  the  main  obscure,  though  in  default  of  any  one 
of  the  details  a  difference  would  be  noted.  The  discussion  is  valuable 
to  our  purpose  only  in  so  far  as  it  now  emphasized  the  possibility  of 
art  as  a  basis  for  moral  betterment.  Distinct  ideas  have  little  power 
to  move;  this  he  had  demonstrated  quantitatively  in  the  first  essay 

"Hume? 


55 

wherein  it  was  shown  that  distinct  ideas  are  possible  only  in  single 
details,  the  number  of  nerves  affected  is  thereby  limited  and  hence  the 
quantity  of  sensation  less.  Without  discussing  the  merits  or  weak- 
nesses of  this  position,  we  may  easily  see  the  logical  deduction  to 
which  this  leads  him.  Since  distinct  ideas  have  little  power  to  move, 
so  art  might  well  serve  the  purpose  of  putting  truths  in  the  form  of 
"confused"  ideas,  that  is  in  putting  them  into  a  form  in  which  the 
senses  grasp  an  agreeable  impression  of  a  whole,  and  the  quantity  of 
sensation  or  emotion,  if  you  will,  is  such  that  it  may  more  readily 
reflect  itself  in  moral  action.  In  this  manner  truth  would  be  given 
greater  motive  force.  In  this  way  the  moral  value  in  poetry  and  art, 
characteristic  of  the  time,  was  explained  as  an  integral  part  of  his 
general  conception. 

In  the  "Essay  on  Genius"  (1757)  Sulzer  accepts  Dubos'  definition 
and  defines  genius  as  a  greater  animation  (Lebhaftigkeit)  of 
soul  whereby  greater  desires  are  engendered,  and  the  individual  is 
gradually  led  to  a  more  intense  development  along  this  or  that  form 
of  literature  or  art. 

In  the  "Philosophische  Betrachtungen  iiber  die  Niitzlichkeiten 
der  dramatischen  Dichtkunst"  (1760)  which  is  intended  apparently 
to  serve  as  a  refutation  of  Rousseau's  attack  upon  the  theatre, 
Sulzer  comes  out  more  strongly  for  the  moral  possibilities  in  poetry, 
particularly  drama,  than  he  had  done  before.  He  conceives  of  the 
drama  as  something  which  should  represent  the  "ideally  beautiful." 
However  much  the  dramatist  might  sin  against  historical  truth,  he 
must  be  morally  true  with  regard  to  the  situations  and  characters. 
"The  dramatic  action  presents  the  fact  not  as  it  should  be  to  an  eye 
witness,  but  as  a  higher  intelligent  being  would  see  it  ...  "  What 
he  desires  is  perfect  moral  types.  He  is  accordingly  averse  to  the 
usual  "prejudice"  whereby  a  virtuous  man  succumbs  upon  the  stage, 
and  sees  no  reason  why  a  happy  outcome  should  not  move  quite  as 
much  as  an  unhappy  one.  The  stage  would  therefore  be  able  to  fur- 
nish man  with  pictures  which  would  include  all  the  moral  truths  in 
material  forms.  The  mere  names  of  Tartuffe  and  Harpagon  would 
show  the  hypocrite  or  the  miser  better  than  the  best  philosopher  with 
his  definitions.  To  a  young  man  going  astray  one  would  say: 
"Young  man,  remember  Barnwell"  !^^    This  has  all  been  more  or 

1"  Merchant  of  London. 


56    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

less  strongly  reminiscent  of  Diderot,  whom  he  in  fact  quotes  here  in 
support  of  this  position. 

From  the  formal  standpoint  Sulzer  adhered  strictly  to  classical 
ideals  as  he  understood  them.  This  is  seen  in  the  attempt  he  made 
in  the  early  70's  to  prepare  Cymbeline  for  the  German  stage  by 
remodeling  it  with  respect  to  the  three  unities,  which  shows  how  little 
he  was  affected  by  the  Storm  and  Stress  movement  of  the  time.  The 
sense  of  "visible  totality"  was  an  essential  part  of  Sulzer 's  rationalis- 
tic attitude,  from  which  Lessing's  conception  of  dramatic  unity  is  in 
reality  not  far  removed." 

In  an  article  entitled  "Anmerkungen  uber  die  verschiedenen 
Zustande,  worin  sich  die  Seele  bei  Ausiibung  ihrer  Hauptvermogen, 
namlich  des  Vermogens,  sich  etwas  vorzustellen  und  des  Vermogens 
etwas  zu  empfinden  befindet"  (1763)  Sulzer  has  been  brought, 
possibly  because  of  Mendelssohn,  to  separate  more  distinctly  these 
two  faculties  of  the  soul.  This  is  interesting  in  so  far  as  it  is  an  evi- 
dence of  the  gradually  extended  place  that  is  being  accorded  feeling  at 
this  time.  The  distinction  which  he  brings  to  the  front  is  found  both 
in  Shaftesbury  and  Mendelssohn  and  even  in  Batteux  and  is  part  of 
the  attempt  to  separate  intellectual  truths  from  sensuous  truths.  In 
the  understanding  the  mind  busies  itself  with  the  object  outside  of 
itself;  in  the  feeling  the  soul  feels  itself,  is  conscious  of  its  own  condi- 
tion (Zustand);  in  the  one  case  ideas  have  to  do  with  the  objects 
without  relation  to  ourselves,  in  the  other  case  the  relation  to  our- 
selves is  prominent  and  we  are  the  more  conscious  of  our  own  feeling 
than  of  the  object.  The  close  connection  between  moral  and  aesthetic 
feeling  is  as  apparent  here  as  in  Shaftesbury  for  example.  It  may  be 
noted  further  that  one  of  the  outstanding  features  of  the  Allgemeine 
Theorie  which  did  not  appear  until  the  70's,  was  this  relation  which 
poetry  and  art  bear  to  morality. 

Mendelssohn 

The  position  of  Mendelssohn  during  this  period  was  one  of  great 
prominence.  It  is  necessary  only  to  recall  the  large  number 
of  articles  either  dedicated  to  him  or  issued  in  the  form  of  letters 

"  The  discussion  of  Hamlet's  soliloquy  in  this  essay  recalls  the  fact  that  a  transla- 
tion of  this  could  have  been  found  by  him  in  Mendelssohn's  "Hauptgrundziige." 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    57 

addressed  to  him  to  realize  this.  He  was  either  in  personal  touch  or 
in  active  correspondence  with  nearly  all  the  prominent  men  of  his 
time.  He  was  a  person  of  broad  sympathies,  and  profoundly  inter- 
ested in  the  intellectual  movements  of  his  time. 

In  the  "Briefe  liber  die  Empfindungen"  (1755)  Mendelssohn 
makes  it  a  point  to  clear  up  a  confusion  into  which  rationalistic 
thought  had  brought  aesthetic  theory,  namely  the  consideration  of 
beauty  as  synonymous  with  perfection.  Diderot  had  anticipated  him 
in  this  regard  in  his  article  "Beau"  where  he  called  attention  to  this 
essential  error  of  the  Wolffian  school,  but  his  own  theory  of  "rapport" 
was  not  accepted  in  Germany  as  a  solution  of  the  difficulty.  Mendels- 
sohn showed  that  as  far  as  art  is  concerned  it  is  incorrect  to  speak  of 
an  antithesis  of  "distinct"  and  "confused"  ideas.  As  a  rational  being, 
we  are  capable  of  "distinct"  ideas,  but  we  are  by  nature  predominant- 
ly sensuous  and  our  ideas  are  to  this  extent  limited.  We  are  unable 
to  have  a  distinct  idea  of  an  object  as  a  whole  and  at  the  same  time  in 
all  its  relations  and  details.  Consequently  we  have  no  immediate 
perception  of  what  is  truth  or  perfection  except  to  a  limited  extent. 
This  being  true  with  regard  to  objects  in  nature  it  is  equally  so  with 
regard  to  art.  Beauty  is  a  result  or  a  compensation  for  the  fact  that 
man  is  limited  in  his  ability  to  perceive  truth.  Beauty  does  not  exist 
for  an  infinite  being  to  whom  everything  is  accessible  as  truth. 

Beauty  being  a  matter  of  "confused"  ideas  the  antithesis  which 
may  with  accuracy  be  applied  to  art  is  "dark"  and  "clear,"  it  being 
the  aim  of  the  artist  to  avoid  that  which  is  too  extensive  or  too  small, 
as  Aristotle  had  pointed  out,  and  thereby  secure  a  "clear"  impression 
for  the  senses.  Art  being  thus  viewed  with  respect  to  the  senses 
perfection  in  the  object  was  not  viewed  by  Mendelssohn  as  a  merely 
logical  unity  in  plurality,  i.e.,  Einheit  in  Mannigfaltigkeit,  but  as 
Einerlei  (Einhelligkeit,  Uebereinstimmung)  in  Mannigfaltigkeit,  by 
which  he  could  mean  nothing  more  than  a  unified  sense  impression.* 
A  failure  to  discover  the  distinction  which  Mendelssohn  here  points 
out,  accounts  for  the  fact  that  rationalistic  thought,  as  in  the  case  of 
Sulzer,  had  gone  to  such  extremes  as  to  put  pleasure  in  a  geometric 
theorem  or  in  a  principle  in  science  on  a  par  with  pleasure  in  a  work 
of  art. 

Mendelssohn's  explanation  of  the  distinction  between  beauty  and 
truth  or  perfection  did  not  mean,  as  can  be  seen  later,  that  he  dis- 


missed  the  use  of  the  term  perfection  as  applied  to  art,  but  it  was 
intended  to  make  clear  that  a  work  of  art  was  not  truth  or  perfection 
in  itself,  but  only  with  respect  to  the  beholder,  and  that  it  did  not 
follow  that  the  greater  the  truth  or  logical  perfection  of  the  object, 
the  greater  was  the  proportion  of  pleasure  realized.  It  was  probably 
for  this  reason  that  he  ignores  Sulzer's  explanation  of  sensation, 
which  implied  just  such  a  proportion  between  excitement  from  with- 
out and  pleasure  within.  An  object  of  art  might  contain  what  in 
themselves  are  imperfections.  The  true  test  of  art  was  not  therefore 
in  the  perfection  of  the  object  but  in  the  effect  realized  in  the  beholder, 
so  that  the  aim  of  the  artist  cannot  be  a  merely  logical  or  intellectual 
truth  but  an  appeal  to  a  deeper  impulse  in  human  nature. 

Our  attitude  towards  tragedy  on  the  stage  makes  it  clear  that 
there  is  pleasure  in  beholding  what  is  in  itself  unpleasant.  Like 
Dubos  and  Burke,  he  is  opposed  to  the  theory  that  the  consciousness 
of  a  counterfeit  or  an  illusion  in  art  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  enjoy 
a  picture  of  a  shipwreck  or  a  tragedy  on  the  stage.  He  is  rather 
of  the  opinion,  which  as  we  know  from  a  later  passage  was  cleared  up 
for  him  by  Burke,  that  such  a  pleasure  is  positive  in  character  and  must 
be  so  accounted  for.  His  conclusions  are  most  interesting  and  of 
influence  upon  later  writers. 

His  first  conclusion  is  arrived  at  in  connection  with  the  discussion 
of  suicide  on  the  stage,  which  was  continued  in  his  later  essays. 
This  discussion  made  clear  that  just  as  truth  is  distinct  from  pleasure, 
so  art  is  not  itself  life.  Everything  within  a  picture  or  a  tragedy  has 
existence  only  in  relation  to  itself  as  a  work  of  art  and  in  so  far  as  the 
whole  was  aimed  to  be  presented  to  the  senses  of  those  who  behold  it. 
From  this  standpoint  the  details  of  a  piece  of  music  or  of  tragedy 
could  be  ugly  without  thereby  annulling  the  beauty  of  the  whole. 
The  blackest  crime  might  be  admitted  to  tragedy,  if  it  served  to  give 
a  stronger  impression  of  the  passion  which  the  whole  was  aimed  to 
arouse.  Suicide  therefore  which  would  be  condemned  in  actual  life, 
serves  its  end  on  the  stage,  provided  that  care  be  taken  to  treat 
morality  in  the  drama  so  that  the  audience  may  not  draw  conclusions 
which  have  not  the  same  application  to  the  morality  of  actual  life. 
That  the  stage  has  its  own  morality,  that  art  has  its  own  laws,  its 
own  totality,  was  one  step  he  took  in  aesthetic  theory  and  which 
came  to  the  front  in  the  theories  of  Schiller.     This  view  of  a  work 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time     59 

of  art  as  a  totality  was  carried  further  by  Mendelssohn  than  by 
Shaftesbury. 

As  a  rule  Mendelssohn  insisted  strongly  on  the  artificial  character 
of  art,  that  it  is  after  all  only  an  imitation;  the  artist  therefore  can- 
not count  on  securing  except  for  brief  and  unguarded  moments 
the  effect  of  a  real  illusion.  He  differs  from  Lessing  and  particularly 
Diderot  in  their  efforts  in  the  direction  of  perfect  illusion.  His  own 
position  in  this  matter  is  proved  to  his  satisfaction  in  the  fact  that 
one  who  never  attended  the  theatre  is  bored  with  a  play  so  long  as  he 
looks  only  for  an  illusion.  The  same  argument  he  holds  to  be  true 
with  regard  to  sculpture  and  answers  the  question  as  to  whether  a 
statue  should  be  painted  or  not.  Art  being  unable  to  produce  an 
extended  illusion,  he  makes  it  a  principle  that  it  shall  not  attempt 
to  attain  it,  although  he  favors  any  effort  in  the  direction  of  making 
the  illusion  or  imitation  as  powerful  as  possible,  allowing  full  license 
in  the  matter  of  details. 

So  much  for  the  work  of  art  as  such.  Mendelssohn  considered 
the  subject  from  the  standpoint  of  the  emotions  themselves.  His 
argument  takes  into  account  the  theory  of  Dubos.  In  the  closing 
pages  of  this  essay  he  raises  objections  to  Dubos'  statement  of  the 
case  that  the  soul  longs  to  be  moved,  even  though  it  be  moved  by 
what  is  in  itself  unpleasant,  agreeing  at  this  time  rather  with  Mau- 
pertuis,  as  he  states  later,  that  an  ''agreeable  idea  or  perception  is 
one  we  would  rather  have  than  not  have."  "Pleasure  like  the  will," 
Mendelssohn  thinks,  "must  have  a  real  or  an  apparent  good  as  a 
motive  force.  .  .  .  According  to  Dubos'  hypothesis  we  would 
necessarily  have  pleasure  in  horror,  remorse  or  terror  because  the 
soul  is  moved  by  these  things;  experience  proves  the  contrary." 
But  in  the  opening  pages  of  the  Rhapsodie^^^  Mendelssohn  states,  "I 
was  wrong  in  criticising  Dubos  for  saying  that  the  soul  longs  to  be 
moved,  even  when  moved  by  the  perception  of  what  is  unpleasant. 
This  is  in  the  strictest  sense  true,  since  the  emotion  which  is  produced 
within  the  soul  by  reason  of  the  perception  of  what  is  unpleasant 
may  with  respect  to  the  object  treated  (Vorwurf)  be  none  other  than 
pleasant."  In  other  words  he  accepts  Dubos  by  introducing  a  prin- 
ciple not  found  in  Dubos.  There  is  a  pleasure  in  beholding  what  is 
unpleasant,  but  not  merely  because  the  soul  is  thereby  moved,  but 

^^*  Rhapsodic  iiber  die  Empfindungen. 


60    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

by  reason  of  other  emotions  positive  in  character  appearing  simul- 
taneously with  the  perception  of  what  is  disagreeable.  That  is  to 
say,  the  mind  works  positively. 

Mendelssohn  admits,  in  a  later  essay,  that  it  was  Burke's  work 
on  the  Sublime  which  brought  him  to  see  clearly,  as  he  may  not  have 
before,  the  actual  nature  of  what  he  calls  the  mixed  emotions  (ver- 
mischte  Empfindungen).  In  this  passage  he  regrets  Burke's  lack 
of  familiarity  with  Wolffian  philosophy  but  nevertheless  admires 
him  for  the  close  relationship  which  he  maintained  between  reason 
and  experience,  which  he  thought  made  him  superior  to  Dubos.  It 
is  clear  then  that  Burke  is  responsible  for  the  explanation  which  he 
had  for  our  pleasure  in  seeing  what  is  unpleasant  in  art.  Weeping, 
he  now  demonstrates,  is  a  mixed  emotion  involving  what  is  pleasant 
and  what  is  unpleasant,  a  sensuous  perception  which  involves  a  per- 
fection and  an  imperfection.  Laughter  similarly  is  a  mixed  emotion, 
difiFering  from  weeping  only  in  so  far  as  it  touches  us  less  vitally. 

This  theory  leads  to  an  interesting  application  with  respect  to  the 
Aristotelian  pity  and  fear.  In  the  "Brief e  uber  die  Empfindungen" 
Mendelssohn  objected  to  Dubos'  analogy  between  the  pleasure  in 
tragedy  and  the  pleasure  in  witnessing  a  bull  fight  or  a  gladiatorial 
combat.  Mendelssohn  held  rather  that  in  the  case  of  the  former  the 
poet  aims  to  secure  a  feeling  of  pity  for  the  hero,  while  in  the  latter 
case  one  must  first  conquer  extreme  pity  as  a  condition  of  enjoyment. 
In  the  Rhapsodic  Mendelssohn  allows  himself  a  somewhat  similar 
analogy  between  art  and  life,  namely  the  pleasure  secured  in  viewing 
the  Lisbon  earthquake.  In  this  instance  he  finds  that  the  pleasure  is 
positive  to  the  extent  that  while  the  beholder  would  have  done  all  in 
his  power  to  have  prevented  the  catastrophe,  he  nevertheless  has  a 
sense  of  pleasure  in  viewing  its  results,  his  pleasure  being  again  a 
mixed  one.  The  interpretation  which  he  gives  to  tragic  pity  and  fear 
is  that  the  displeasure  we  have  in  witnessing  the  tragic  experiences  of 
the  hero  is  offset  by  the  love  we  have  for  the  hero  and  the  desire  for 
his  perfection.  Lessing's  views  on  this  subject  in  the  Hamburgische 
Dramaturgic  show  the  extent  of  Mendelssohn's  influence  on  him. 

With  this  view  of  the  mixed  emotions  and  its  relation  to  perfec- 
tion and  imperfection,  we  come  upon  Mendelssohn's  theory  of  the 
moral  value  of  art,  which  is  developed  even  more  fully  in  the  next 
essay,  "Ueber  die  Grundsatze  der  schonen  Kunste  und  Wissenschaf- 
ten"   (1757).     He  accepts  from  Leibnitzian  philosophy  the  single 


faculty  of  the  human  soul  which  is  evidenced  in  its  impulse  towards 
perfection.  Pleasure  in  art  can  be  explained  then  only  as  it  har- 
monizes with  this  leading  principle.  The  pleasure  in  tragedy  aside 
from  its  being  a  perfect  totality  comes  from  the  fact  that  in  the  midst 
of  the  sufferings  of  the  hero  we  form  in  our  own  minds  an  ideal  of  his 
perfection.  Even  in  the  perception  of  imperfections  the  soul  is 
aroused  to  its  original  impulse  towards  perfection.  Art  then  either 
presents  perfection  or  raises  the  idea  of  perfection  in  our  souls.  In 
the  Rhapsodie  he  states:  "We  are  now  long  past  that  gloomy  moral- 
ity which  condemns  all  the  delights  in  things  and  prescribes  duties 
for  which  the  creator  has  not  adapted  us.  We  are  destined  not  only 
to  better  our  powers  of  intellect  and  will,  but  our  emotions  as  well, 
through  sense  perception,  and  thereby  raise  the  dark  impulses  of  the 
soul  to  a  higher  perfection.  "^^ 

Mendelssohn  has  some  interesting  remarks  with  regard  to  the 
principle  of  the  imitation  of  nature.  With  regard  to  Batteux  he 
offers  the  just  criticism  that  he  fails  to  allow  for  a  pleasure  in  nature 
itself.  He  admits  that  there  is  a  certain  pleasure  in  seeing  a  good 
imitation  of  nature  and  makes  an  important  point  in  noting  that 
there  is  a  pleasure  experienced  in  perceiving  the  greatness  of  the 
artist  reflected  in  his  work,  in  seeing  how  the  "perfection  of  the 
powers  of  his  soul  have  united  to  produce  a  masterpiece,"  an  idea 
that  is  worked  out  in  greater  detail  in  his  essay  "Ueber  das  Erhabene, 
etc." 

It  is  noteworthy  that  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  Mendels- 
sohn's conception  of  art  contemplated  a  change  with  regard  to  what 
had  been  accepted  as  the  true  standard  of  beauty,  namely  Greek  art. 
The  innovation  in  his  theory  does  not  affect  the  objects  of  art  at  all, 
but  represents  merely  a  new  manner  of  explaining  the  pleasure  we 
get  from  these  objects.  Accordingly  the  theory  which  Mendelssohn 
offers  with  regard  to  the  relation  of  art  to  nature,  represents  nothing 
but  the  classical  conception  of  typical  art.  The  individual  objects  of 
the  artist's  "imitation"  are  closer  to  the  ideal  beauty  of  nature  than 
nature  itself.  To  imitate  beautiful  nature,  he  holds,  is  to  "copy  a 
certain  object  as  God  would  have  created  it,  had  sensuous  beauty  been 
his  highest  aim  and  there  had  been  no  important  reason  for  varying  it.*'^ 

^  Contrast  this  with  Sulzer's  rationalistic  viewpoint  above. 
^'  Mendelssohn  expresses  a  similar  idea  in  his  discussions  with  Lessing  and  Nicolai 
with  regard  to  the  Laokoon. 


62    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

Nature  being  below  the  standard  of  art  he  sees,  with  Winckelmann, 
the  value  of  the  study  of  Greek  works,  in  other  words,  the  old  theory 
of  the  imitation  of  the  ancients  comes  here  to  light  again.  With  such 
a  viewpoint  Mendelssohn  had  little  that  was  new  to  offer  with  regard 
to  such  formal  principles  as  unity,  order,  simplicity,  etc., 
which  were  made  to  conform  to  his  general  theory  of  art 
as  a  perfect  representation  to  the  senses.  But  these  were  theories 
relative  to  sculpture.  When  one  thinks  of  the  fact  that  he 
considered  the  ideal  of  modern  times  as  Carl  Grandison! 
and  the  increased  importance  accorded  the  emotions,  we  are  inclined 
to  believe  that  Mendelssohn  followed  the  same  course  pursued  by 
Lessing,  namely  that  for  sculpture  he  retained  the  refined  simplicity 
of  the  Greeks,  but  in  poetry  he  welcomed  a  larger  display  of  the 
emotions  and  would  probably  have  welcomed,  quite  in  the  manner 
of  Diderot  in  France,  a  definite  place  for  moral  improvement. 

Mendelssohn  was  aware  that  there  was  a  basis  for  the  distinction 
of  arts  by  taking  into  account  the  nature  of  the  signs  used,  i.e., 
colors,  words,  figures,  etc.,  and  he  furnishes  an  important  link  in  the 
development  which  led  up  to  Lessing's  Laokoon  and  Herder's 
Waldchen.  The  signs  of  poetry  he  consistently  held  to  be  arbitrary, 
those  of  painting  and  the  arts  in  general  natural.  He  accepts  the 
Baumgarten  definition  of  poetry  as  sensuous  perfect  speech,  just 
as  he  had  based  his  theory  of  the  essential  in  all  arts  on  artificial 
sensuous  perfect  representation.  Poetry  is  made  sensuous  by  the  use 
of  sufficient  marks  or  traits  to  suggest  the  object  itself  to  the  imagina- 
tion which  builds  on  former  experience.  Everything  may  be  pre- 
sented by  arbitrary  signs  if  the  mind  already  has  a  clear  notion  of  the 
things  themselves.  The  arts  which  have  to  confine  themselves  to  the 
natural  signs  are  therefore  more  limited  than  poetry.  Each  art  must 
accommodate  itself  to  the  part  allowed  it  by  the  nature  of  its  signs. 
Music  cannot  depict  the  rose,  nor  painting  a  chord.  The  eye  and  the 
ear  only  are  involved  in  the  beautiful  arts.  Paintings  deal  with 
surfaces,  sculpture  and  architecture  with  bodies.  Mendelssohn  was, 
however,  conscious  of  the  limitations  which  this  was  putting  on  the 
arts  and  consequently  indicated  to  what  extent  one  art  may  reach 
over  into  the  field  of  another,  allowing  action  in  painting  and  words 
as  natural  signs  in  poetry.  Painting  was  given  the  liberty  of  express- 
ing abstract  thoughts"  and  to  a  reasonable  extent  allegory.^^ 

"  Dubos. 

"  Winckelmann. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    63 

In  the  essay  on  the  Sublime  Mendelssohn  lays  claim  to  originality 
in  calling  attention  to  an  essential  distinction  between  subject  and 
object.  There  is  a  sublime,  he  holds,  in  a  work  of  art  when  we  consider 
the  object  itself,  when  we  see  how  more  has  been  indicated  than  has 
been  given  to  the  senses.  The  sublime  then  is  an  imitation  of  what  is 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  senses  through  a  direct  appeal  to  the  senses. 
This  awakens  admiration.  The  object  alone  is  able  to  bring  about 
such  a  feeling.  An  example  given  is  Hamlet's  soliloquy,  *'To  be  or 
not  to  be,"  which  is  quoted. 

But  there  is  another  form  of  sublimity  than  that  awakened  by  the 
object.  It  is  an  admiration  for  the  work  of  the  artist,  a  position  which 
has  already  been  indicated  in  another  connection.  The  admiration 
for  what  the  artist  has  done  when  the  object  itself  has  offered  little  of 
itself  is  a  form  of  the  sublime.  The  scene  with  the  flute  in  Hamlet  is 
an  example  given  among  others. 

WiNCKELMANN 

Winckelmann's  position  in  the  movement  of  the  time  was  impor- 
tant particularly  from  the  fact  that  he  tended  to  concentrate  the 
attention  of  the  public  upon  the  ideal  of  Greek  art.  At  a  time  when 
Mendelssohn  and  Sulzer  were  laboring  upon  the  nature  of  aesthetic 
pleasure  with  the  aim  of  arriving  at  a  theory  of  art,  Winckelmann  was 
discussing  art  without  reference  to  the  terminology  of  the  Baumgar- 
ten  school.^^  In  1755  Winckelmann,  at  that  time  38  years  of  age, 
gave  out  a  concise  und  definite  statement  of  what  was  to  remain 
almost  unchanged  his  position  with  regard  to  the  essential  character 
of  art.  The  ''Gedanken  iiber  die  Nachahmungen  der  griechischen 
Werke  in  der  Malerei  und  Bildhauerkunst"  had  the  advantage  over 
the  theory  of  Mendelssohn  and  Sulzer  of  dealing  concretely  with  art. 
It  came  at  a  time  when  the  Barock  and  Rokoko  had  been  dominating 
forms  and  when  the  influence  of  Shaftesbury  and  the  French  school 
were  aiding  the  gradual  wakening  of  interest  in  Greek  standards. 
What  Winckelmann  did  was  not  merely  to  take  a  definite  stand  with 
regard  to  ancient  art,  but  to  do  it  so  completely,  with  so  much  concen- 
tration, that  his  position  was  at  once  clear  and  his  influence 
immediate. 

"  Justi,  Winckelmann,  seine  Werke  und  seine  Zeitgenossen.  Winckelmann  heard 
Baumgarten  at  Halle. 


64    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

It  was  an  important  moment  for  Germany  that  Winckelmann 
secured  his  ideas  of  ancient  art  ultimately  from'  a  study  of  ancient 
works  themselves.  In  urging  therefore  a  direct  and  immediate  study 
of  Greek  art,  he  was  paving  the  way  for  a  real  classicism,  to  which  the 
misguided  efforts  of  Gottsched  and  the  other  adherents  of  the  French 
would  never  have  attained.  What  he  was  attempting  to^4ojor  art, 
Lessing  later  did  for  drama,  holding  up  Aristotle  and  Greek  drai 
tists  as  a  true  source  for  the  fundamental  principles  of  an  art  adhered 
to  even  by  Shakespeare. 

Art  (and  by  art  Wickelmann  meant  almost  exclusively  sculpture) 
was  before  anything  else  a  question  of  eternal  beauty,  a  question  of 
form,  an  ideal  which  was  not  only  secured  from  a  study  of  Greek 
art,  but  was  reinforced  at  least  by  Hogarth's  theory  of  the  beautiful 
line,  which  appeared  in  1753.  According  to  Winckelmann,  ideal 
beauty  which  was  found  in  Greek  works,  as  nowhere  else,  was  not  a 
detail  copy  of  the  human  form,  but  was  an  ideal  arrived  at  only  after 
the  study  of  many  human  figures.  In  fact  Winckelmann,  as  Justi 
shows,  was  for  a  long  time  convinced  that  many  parts  of  the  human 
figure,  as  they  appeared  in  Greek  art,  were  due  to  a  consideration  for 
the  beauty  of  form,  and  was  surprised  when  later  he  found  in  Italy 
examples  of  the  Grecian  nose  as  well  as  other  details  of  the  Greek 
figures,  which  he  formerly  considered  as  concessions  to  the  law  of 
beauty.  This  convinced  him  that  the  Greeks  stood  closer  to  their 
models  than  he  had  thought,  although  he  never  believed  the  Greeks 
worked  directly  from  single  models. 

The  sacrifice  of  details  to  secure  what  he  terms  "sanften 
Schwung"^^  he  calls,  in  the  "Nachahmung,"  the  use  of  the  ''probable." 
By  this  means  the  artist  was  able  to  secure  "a,  unity  of  the  whole 
structure,  a  nobler  relation  of  parts  and  a  richer  measure  of  fuU- 
ness."i8 

In  the  process  of  securing  ideal  beauty,  Winckelmann  was  in 
search  of  an  absolute  ideal.  He  proceeded  with  a  fixed  notion  that 
there  was  only  one  beauty,  and  his  history  of  Greek  art  shows  how 
lacking  he  was  in  any  real  historic  sense.  The  ideal  which  he 
sought  was  therefore  one  in  which  all  characteristic  features,  all 
personal  and  individual  qualities  were  absent.  Beauty  was  a  form 
"peculiar  neither  to  this  or  that  person." 

"16. 
"Fulle. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  or  HIS  TIME      65 

The  notion  of  ideal  beauty  was  thus  not  in  the  case  of  Winckel- 
mann  a  nature  choisie  of  the  French  school.  He  was  fully  aware  that 
the  conditions  were  not  such  that  objects  in  nature  often  attained  to 
their  full  measure  of  beauty.  In  certain  countries  conditions  favored 
the  production  of  beautiful  objects,  (and  by  beautiful  objects  he 
means  the  human  form),  and  these  were  countries  where  the  climate 
permitted  the  full  development  of  beautiful  bodies.  The  theory  of 
climate  thus  took  a  different  turn  in  Winckelmann  than  in  Dubos 
with  whose  work  he  was  familiar.  Coupled  with  the  favorable  condi- 
tions under  which  the  human  form  was  able  to  develop,  was  the  fact 
that  Greek  customs  were  such  that  the  body  itself  was  exposed 
constantly  to  the  eye.  Hence  he  urges  the  superiority  of  Greek  works, 
since  their  artists  were  afforded  greater  opportunity  to  get  close  to 
the  ideal  beauty  in  nature. 

His  conception  of  the  ideal  form  went  further  than  this.  In  the 
first  place  religion  and  heroic  legend  had  joined  in  imposing  upon  the 
artist  the  necessity  of  creating  forms  for  which  nature  itself  could  by 
no  possibility  furnish  models.  Here  it  was  no  longer  a  question  of 
judgment  and  taste,  but  of  imagination  and  inspiration  (in  the  sense 
of  enthusiasm. )^^  The  poets  were  the  founders  of  Greek  religion  and 
were  responsible  for  the  ''exalted  conception,  which  gave  wings  to  the 
imagination  and  caused  them  to  raise  their  works  above  themselves 
and  the  sensuous."  With  this  Winckelmann  comes  close  to  the 
realm  of  abstract  ideas,  which  he  urged  with  considerable  force  in 
the  ''Nachahmungen,"  and  where  in  a  similar  vein  he  defended  the  use 
of  allegory.  In  the  attempt  to  arrive  at  the  expression  of  what  was 
more  than  human,  namely  "das  Gottliche,"  he  saw  the  necessity 
of  proceeding  not  merely  from  nature,  but  from  the  idea  which  the 
artist  had  himself  conceived. 

The  conception  of  ideal  content,  which  Winckelmann  proposed, 
apart  from  ideal  form,  was  an  ideal  which  he  found  in  ancient  Greece 
and  which  was  brought  out  to  a  degree  in  the  writings  of  his  favorite 
philosopher  Shaftesbury.  Justi^^  finds  in  his  attitude  of  the  Greek 
philosophers  towards  the  emotions  the  same  predominance  of  the 
intellectual.  The  ideal  was  a  repose  and  happiness  secured  only  when 
the  mind  even  in  suffering  was  in  full  mastery  of  itself.    "This  subor- 

»  Justi  166. 
«oni,  175flF. 


66    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

dination  of  the  life  of  the  senses,  the  emotions,  the  feelings,  this 
intellectual  impassivity  and  divine  peace  of  soul,  this  national  and 
philosophical  Ataxic  and  Apathie  hovers  on  the  forehead  of  their 
sculptured  figures."  When  therefore  Winckelmann  seeks  for  "edle 
Einfalt  und  stille  Grosse"  he  is  not  allowing  art  a  full  expression  of 
passion,  but  he  is  insisting  upon  an  ideal  moment  "when  the  storm 
is  perhaps  past  and  one  beholds  in  calm  the  full  depth  of  passion." 
This  was  his  notion  when  he  praised  the  statue  of  Laokoon  and  found 
that  the  sculptor  had  depicted  the  priest,  not  as  crying  out  in  the 
intensity  of  his  suffering,  but  in  full  mastery  of  himself.  It  would  fol- 
low then  that  Winckelmann  was  concerned  in  the  greatness  of  a  soul 
under  suffering.  Thus  Winckelman  had  a  double  ideal  in  Greek  art, 
an  ideal  of  form  and  of  content,  both  of  which  representing  a  type 
rather  than  a  particular  instance,  might  well  be  brought  into  harmony 
in  art. 

Lessing  took  "expression"  in  the  sense  of  extreme  or  individual 
emotional  content,  and  subordinated  it  absolutely  to  the  law  of  for- 
mal beauty,  whereby  it  became  necessary  for  an  artist  to  avoid 
extreme  moments  of  passion.  Winckelmann  would  have  agreed  to 
this  perfectly.  He  realized  too  that  extremes  of  passion  distort  the 
line  of  beauty.  "In  the  state  of  passion  the  features  of  the  face  and 
the  attitude  of  the  body  change  and  the  greater  the  change  the  more  to 
the  disadvantage  of  beauty.  .  .  .  The  soul  is  great  and  noble  in  the 
state  of  unity,  of  repose;  although  it  is  more  characteristic  (kennt- 
licher  und  bezeichneter)  in  violent  passions." 

In  its  final  form  the  ideal  of  Winckelmann  was  a  presentation  of 
what  in  every  possible  respect  was  above  nature.  Everything  sug- 
gestive of  the  sensuous,  or  of  the  organic  body,  gave  way  to  what  was 
purely  beautiful  and  within  the  range  of  pure  ideas.  "With  such 
conceptions  beauty  was  raised  from  the  sensuous  to  what  was  un- 
created, and  the  hand  of  artists  brought  forth  creatures  which  were 
free  from  human  needs,  figures  which  represented  human  kind  in 
a  higher  dignity.  .  .  .  They  raised  themselves  into  the  realm  of 
incorporal  ideas  and  became  creators  of  pure  spirits  and  heavenly 
souls,  which  awaken  no  sensual  desires,  but  bring  about  a  visualized 
contemplation  of  all  beauty,  for  they  seem  not  to  be  formed  out  of 
passions,  but  only  to  have  assumed  these." 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    67 

This  concludes  our  survey  of  the  aesthetic  field  so  far  as  it  is 
deemed  necessary  for  this  study.  Lessing,  whose  position  is  naturally 
one  of  great  importance,  has  been  touched  upon  in  various  connec- 
tions. It  will  be  perhaps  sufficient  if  we  make  a  special  study  of  the 
relation  of  Herder  to  the  Laokoon,  which  is  the  work  of  chief  moment 
at  this  time.  A  discussion  of  Kant  has  been  omitted  since  even  at  this 
early  date  Herder  sensed  the  marked  alienation  of  his  thought  from 
that  of  his  former  teacher,  and  this  breach  only  grew  wider  until 
Herder  was  emboldened  to  attempt  an  extended  refutation  of  Kant's 
aesthetic  viewpoint  in  his  Kalligone. 


i<(o?-H 


II 

Bi^  this  general  survey  of  the  aesthetic  movement  of  the  18th 
century  up  to  the  end  of  the  60's,  a  common  basis  has  been  established 
fr0m  which  to  enter  upon  a  more  particular  examination  of  Herder's 
position  with  regard  to  this  movement.  The  aim  of  this  study  is  not 
to  enter  upon  a  complete  exposition  of  Herder's  views  on  the  subject 
of  aesthetics,  but  to  investigate  particularly  the  Fourth  Waldchen, 
which,  we  think,  furnishes  documentary  evidence  of  his  relation  to 
his  predecessors  at  the  time  when  his  views  on  aesthetics  were  round- 
ing into  completeness. 

THE  FIRST  WALDCHEN  AND  LESSING'S  LAOKOON 
In  the  First  Waldchen  Herder  had  undertaken  a  thorough  investi- 
gation of  the  principles  laid  down  by  Lessing  in  the  Laokoon,^  (1766). 
However  fundamentally  he  differed  with  regard  to  many  details,  the 
fact  remains  that  the  First  Waldchen  accepts  the  main  position  of 
Lessing  that  it  was  possible  to  distinguish  the  arts  on  the  basis  of 
their  ''signs,"  so  that  this  work  represents  an  effort  to  arrive  at  a 
more  accurate  solution  of  this  principle.  This  is  particularly  impor- 
tant because  it  is  a  point  wherein  the  Fourth  Waldchen  differs 
essentially  from  the  First.  In  the  later  work  a  division  of  the  arts 
according  to  the  ''signs"  is  no  longer  considered  final;  the  idea  is 
promulgated  that  a  scientific  theory  of  aesthetics  must  take  into 
account  the  individual  sense  ultimately  affected  by  each  art,  this 
being  the  original  standpoint  from  which  to  determine  a  fundamental 
division  of  the  arts.  The  First  Waldchen  was  concerned  mainly 
with  the  object;  the  later  position  takes  into  account  both  the  subject 
and  the  object — an  attempt  apparently  to  bridge  the  gap  between 
the  more  objective  consideration  of  art  in  Winckelmann  and  in  the 
Laokoon  and  the  sensationalist  theories  of  Sulzer,  Mendelssohn,  etc. 
While  the  First  Waldchen  is  an  aesthetic  document  of  real  impor- 
tance and  in  some  respects  more  truly  representative  of  Herder's 
characteristic  attitude  of  mind  than  the  last  Waldchen,  it  is  true 
that  the  general  method  of  aesthetic  investigation  and  the  specific 

^  W.  G.  Howard,  Laokoon,  an  indispensible  work  for  the  study  of  the  subject. 
1766. — References  to  Herder  apply  to  Suphan  Ed.  1878. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    69 

position  relative  to  the  problems  of  aesthetics  had  not  yet  been 
determined  in  this  earlier  work.  Our  present  interest  in  the  First 
Waldchen  is  to  witness  Herder's  effort  to  readjust  the  principles 
laid  down  by  Lessing,  which,  as  already  noted,  he  in  a  general  way 
accepted. 

In  the  Laokoon  Lessing  had  set  about  to  distinguish  the  field 
of  painting-sculpture^  from  that  of  poetry.  Shorn  of  its  details 
one  of  the  main  conclusions  to  which  he  arrives  is  that  plastic  art 
in  distinction  from  poetry  is  restrained  from  a  free  expression  of  the 
emotions  by  the  necessity  imposed  upon  it  of  representing  formal 
beauty,  which  is  its  first  law.  A  main  difficulty  observable  in  this 
position  is  that  Lessing  does  not  have  a  common  basis  for  compari- 
son, but  assigns  to  painting-sculpture  the  supreme  law  of  beauty  of 
form  and  to  poetry  a  freedom  of  emotional  expression,  i.e.  content. 
This  incidentally  accounts  for  the  commanding  place  given  to  con- 
siderations of  form  in  the  Laokoon  and  on  the  other  hand  to  the  emo- 
tions in  the  Hamburgische  Dramaturgie. 

Lessing's  theory  of  the  distinction  between  poetry  from  the  plastic 
arts  was  based  upon  the  "signs,"  i.e.  words,  colors,  figures,  etc.,  which 
were  their  peculiar  medium.  These  signs  he  felt  to  be  in  a  degree 
elemental,  so  that  a  consideration  of  their  nature  would  reveal  an 
inherent  difference  between  poetry  and  painting-sculpture.  He 
concluded  therefore  that  in  as  much  as  the  signs  of  painting-sculpture, 
necessarily  existed  side  by  side,  or  were  coexistent,  it  followed  that 
these  arts  would  confine  themselves  to  the  depiction  of  objects  as 
they  would  present  themselves  to  the  vision,  i.e.  side  by  side.  WprdSj_ 
on  the  other  hand,  as  the  signs  of  poetry  necessarily  appeared  in  suc- 
cession and  therefore  he  argued  that  poetry  had  to  do  solely  with 
successions,  which  he  also  called^ai;LtiQIJ.5*.S.o  that  actions  and  not  the 
presentation  of  objects  for  the  vision,  was  the  field  of  poetry.  J 

Herder  at  once  noted  that  in  making  succession  the  characteristic 
quality  of  the  signs  of  poetry  and  of  its  subject  matter,  Lessing  had 
failed  to  take  into  account  the  fact  that  succession  was  quite  as  well 
applicable  to  music.  Further  than  this  he  saw  that  the  signs  of 
poetry  were  not  to  the  same  extent  natural  with  regard  to  poetry  as 
the  signs  of  "painting"  were  to  painting,  and  pointed  out  the  essen- 
tially arbitrary  nature  of  words  which  had  been  particularly  insisted 

2  Lessing  uses  the  term  Malerei — but  his  viewpoint  is  almost  exclusively  that  of 
sculpture. 


70    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

/ 

I 

upon  b}/  Mendelssohn.  To  overcome  the  first  difl&culty  Herder  put 
all  the  ^rts  under  two  categories :  those  which  present  themselves  to 
the  senses  in  their  entirety  such  as  sculpture  and  painting,  and  those 
which/secure  their  effect  only  in  the  progress  of  presentation  such  as^ 
poetry,  music  and  the  dance.  For  these  two  categories  he  used  the  _ 
terms  "work"  and  ''energy,"  respectively,  borrowing  admittedly 
from  the  Englishman  Harris. 

To  overcome  the  second  difficulty  he  introduced  a  new  termin- 
ology. It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Herder  here  adopted  terms  taken^ 
from  the  language  of  metaphysics  since  it  has  led  men  to  seek  a 
deeper  meaning  in  these  terms  than  Herder  meant  they  should  carry. 
In  place  of  "succession"  and  "coexistence"  Herder  substituted 
"time"  and  "space"  without  intending  that  they  should  have  a  dif- 
ferent general  significance  than  the  Lessing  terms.  As  a  term  properly 
fitting  the  nature  of  words  he  added  "Kraft"  or  power.  Just  as 
words  had  value  not  primarily  as  sounds  but  by  reason  of  the  inner 
meaning  or  force  behind  the  word,  so^^etry;— continuing  the  analogy 
in  the  spirit  of  Lessing — should  deal  with  inner  forces  or  genuine 
^actions.  The  advantage  in  this  position  was  that  it  permitted  a  use 
of  the  term  action  which  was  far  more  accurate  than  in  Lessing. 
Mere  succession  does  not  of  itself  signify  action,  according  to  Herder, 
but  requires  an  actuating  cause  behind  the  series  of  events.  We 
judge  of  causation  in  physics  by  noting  a  succession  of  phenomena; 
in  the  same  way  we  consider  a  succession  of  events  as  actions  only 
in  so  far  as  they  are  an  expression  of  an  energizing  principle  originat-, 
ing  in  the  human  soul.^ 

If  his  explanation  is  confused  it  may  be  due  to  the  effort  to  illus- 
trate his  position  with  regard  to  the  case  of  the  shield  of  Achilles, 
the  bow  of  Pindarus  and  the  chariot  of  Juno.  Lessing  had  brought 
these  forward  as  instances  where  Homer  had  sought  to  visualize 
objects  for  the  reader  by  describing  them  in  the  act  of  making,  i.e. 
in  succession  or  as  action.  Herder  correctly  enough  points  out  that  ^ 
Homer's  aim  was  not  to  produce  a  picture  for  the  eye,  but  sensuous 

3  "Power  is  not  an  object  of  sense.  All  that  we  observe  is  succession.  But  when 
we  see  one  thing  invariably  succeeded  by  another  we  not  only  connect  the  one  as 
effect  and  the  other  as  cause,  and  view  them  under  that  relation,  but  we  frame  the 
idea  of  power,  and  conclude  there  is  a  virtue,  an  efl&cacy,  a  force,  in  the  one  thing  to 
originate  or  produce  the  other  (Hume).  'In  the  strict  sense,  power  and  agency  are 
attributes  of  mind  only'  (Reid)"     Fleming,  Vocabulary  of  Philosophy,  p.  379.. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    71 

impressions  of  the  essential  virtue  or  power  associated  with  thgsg^ 
^bj[ects^  Action  in  Herder  is  consistently  in  terms  of  personality^ 
so  that  these  objects  have  little  value  for  Homer  in  so  far  as  they 
do  not  have  direct  bearing  upon  the  personage  for  whom  they  are 
constructed.  The  character  of  the  shield  for  example  reflects  itself 
ultimately  in  the  personality  of  Achilles.  It  enters  into  the  action 
as  one  of  the  forces  and  is  not  to  be  considered  as  something  having 
existence  only  for  its  pictorial  value.  From  this  standpoint  Herder's 
position  is  now  seen  to  be  consistent  with  a  vital  conception  of  action 
throughout  the  Waldchen;  since  the  succeeding  events  which  com- 
pose such  action  bear  a  causal  relation  to  an  originating  power 
lTSrraf£)"wItEiir'tTie'^ffiM"6^^^  the  ihdividual,They  are  therefore  a  sen- 
suour"representation  of  his  persohairty.  

Action  is  in  fact  the  critical  word  in  the  First  Waldchen.  Where 
Lessing  had  sought  to  limit  it  to  certain  arts,  Herder  seeks  to  restore 
it  to  its  own.  Action  is  the  ^''poetic"  element  Jar  excellence,  and  he' 
demands  for  sculpture  and  painting  as  well  as  large  a  use  of  the  poetic 
element  (which  in  this  essay  is  at  all  time  synonymous  with  action) 
as  possible.  When  for  example  Lessing  attempted  to  draw  general 
conclusions  with  regard  to  the  fact  that  certain  Greek  heroes  and 
divinities  wept  by  reason  of  physical  pain,  Herder  sees  in  this  an 
individual  act  and  a  sign  of  cowardice.  Far  from  being  able  to 
talk  ingeneral  terms  with  regard  to  the  Homeric  heroes,  as  Lessing 
had  done,  he  states  ''jeder  ist  cine  eigne  Menschenseele,  die  sich  in 
keinem  andern  aussert."^  Not  ASY]iaLJ3D£ClJaJX.  but  wha^L  the.y..do"^  ■ 
is  the  point  of  interest,  and  in  what  they  do  we  characterize  them  as 
individuals.  Hence  ins  Lead  of  accepting_^with  Lessing  that  the  gods  ^ 
are  abstract  personalities  he  considers  them  as  definite  individual!-^ 
ties  from  whom  our  abstract  conceptions  of  their  general  character^  _ 
have  been  later  deduced. 

While  Herder  accepted  in  a  general  way  the  point  of  view^gf^ 
Winckelmann  and  Lessing  that  beauty  of  form  was  the  supreme  law 
of  sculpture  and  agrees  even  more  particularly  with  Winckelmann 
that   a  certain  repose  and  exaltation  of  soul  arises  from  viewing 

^  The   conception  of  personality  in  Herder  has  been  clearly  worked    out   by 
Professor  Martin  Schiitze,  Herder  Seminar  Lectures,  U.  of  Chicago. 
6  III,  19. 
•m,88. 


72    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

^idealized  Greek  sculpture,  he  seeks  at  all  times  a  greater  amount  of 
actioni  In  view  of  a  change  of  position  in  later  essays,  it  is  signi- 
ficant/that he  speaks  deprecatingly  here  of  the  depiction  of  the  single 
figu^  because  it  forces  upon  the  sculptor  the  necessity  of 
holding  to  a  certain  typical  conception  of  character  in  order  to 
insure  its  identity.  Against  the  depiction  of  the  single  figure  he 
favors  the  group  since  this  makes  possible  the  expression  of  a  ''higher 
beauty,"  i.e.,  the  expression  of  action  and  thereby  individuality.  "In 
every  single  figure,  and  so  in  the  works  of  the  sculptors  who  create 
single  figures,  it  is  the  fault  (Mangel),  the  limitations  and  not  the 
essential  character  of  their  art,  that  it  depicts  its  personages  in  a 
characteristic  (here  in  sense  of  typical)  manner  rather  than  as  indivi- 
duals." "The  entire  mythology  is  in  reality  a  land  of  poetic 
ideas;  even  when  the  artist  depicts  them,  he  is  a  poet."^ 

One  does  not  need  to  be  reminded  that  in  a  general  way  what 
Herder  had  to  say  with  regard  to  poetry  and  the  depiction  of  actions 
in  poetry  would  have  been  subscribed  to  by  Lessing.     Where  Lessing 

jattempted  however  to  keep  the  fields  of  poetry  distinct  from  that  of 
painting-sculpture ,  Herder  reverses  the  process  and  by  insisting 
upon  a  generous  depiction  of  action,  which  as  we  have  seen  he  calls 
the  poetic  element,  he  re-establishes  the  rapprochement  of  the  two 
arts.     Because  it  could  express  action,  painting,  which  was  practically 

Tgnored  by  Lessing,  was  given  a  large  place.  "It  (painting)  has  a 
drama  of  figures;  they  are  so  arranged  as  to  represent  action.  .  .  . 

JThe  painter  in  the  treatment  of  a  poetic  subject  is  a  poet.  .  .  . 
In  reality  one  law  and  one  freedom.^ ^^  This  position  is  consistently 
adhered  to  by  Herder  who  discusses  paintings  solely  on  the  basis  of 
the  story  told  and  its  emotional  content.  In  this  he  is  strikingly  in 
harmony  with  the  position  of  both  Dubos  and  Diderot,  both  of  whom 
were  wont  to  discuss  painting  from  the  standpoint  of  the  story 
depicted.  The  large  position  given  to  the  emotional  content  in  all 
art  shows  to  what  extent  Herder  was  justified  in  introducing  within 
the  Waldchen  a  theory  of  elegiac  poetry  wherein  the  universal  charac- 

^ter  of  the  emotional  nature  and  the  conditions  most  favorable  to 
emotional  expression  are  discussed  at  length. 

It  remains  to  note  that  after  having  broken  through  the  bounda- 

jies  between  painting  and  poetry,  by  giving  action  the  first  place  in 

'  III,  90. 
8  III,  93  f. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    73 

aH  art,  he  completes  the  work  by  restoring  to  poetry  the  right  to 
descriptions.  In  opposition  to  Lessing  he  states  that  complete 
.visualization  is  not  necessarily  the  purpose  of  poetic  description, 
and  that  on  the  other  hand  visualization  is  perfectly  possible  where 
the  objects  themselves  or  the  means  of  depicting  them  are  sufficiently 
familiar  to  require  only  the  mention  of  a  few  traits  for  the  mind  to 
secure  a  fairly  complete  picture  of  the  object  described.^  From  this 
one  may  conclude  that  the  arbitrary  character  of  the  signs  of  poetry 
free  it  from  the  limitations  naturally  imposed  upon  it  by  Lessing. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  by  giving  a  larger  scope  to  action  and 
by  defending  descriptive  poetry,  Herder  has  apparently  restored  the 
confusion  against  which  Lessing  wrote  the  Laokoon,  it  may  be  re- 
called that  Lessing  had  not  intended  to  offer  merely  a  theory,  but 
was  opposing  an  actual  condition  obtaining  in  poetry  and  art.  He 
acted  therefore  no  doubt  with  discretion  in  holding  to  the  fundamen- 
tal principles  and  would,  as  is  generally  believed,  have  qualified  his 
statements  in  the  continuation  of  the  discussion  which  he  had 
planned.  It  may  also  not  be„ioslsi^ht._^^^^  that  Herdfir^aQtiially. 
accepted  the  main  principles  in  this  Anti-Laokoo.n,  his  demonstrations.-, 
however  indicating  to  what  extent  he  had  attached  himself  to^ 
a  new  mode  of  thought  which  was  hostile  to  many  forms  of  rational-^ 
J.sm.  And  the  fact  remains  that  the  form  of  the  Laokoon,  its  clean- 
cut  distinctions  etc.,  gave  Lessing  a  following  to  which  the  First 
Waldchen  never  attained.  It  may  be  safely  said  that  Lessing's  Laokoon 
was  definitely  responsible  for  the  general  tendency  in  Herder's 
aesthetic  views,  the  Laokoon  furnishing  the  rneans  for  Herder  to 
criticize  and  analyze  only  to  develop  along  lines  peculiar  to  his 
type  of  thought.  ' 

""T^he  Second  and  Third  Waldchen  followed  close  upon  the  First, 
but  since  they  were  not  concerned  with  the  immediate  problem  of 
aesthetics,  but  were  mostly  in  the  form  of  polemics  against  Klotz, 
they  furnished  no  occasion  for  an  expression  of  view  with  regard 
to  the  question  of  present  interest.  The  moment  these  were  in  the 
hands  of  the  publisher  he  turned  to  a  consideration  of  a  possible 
Fourth  Waldchen.     This  was  about  the  first  of  December,  1768. 

^  Cf.  Mendelssohn  above,  p.  62. 


THE  FOURTH  WALDCHEN 

T^e  direct  occasion  for  this  particular  essay  is  to  be  seen  in  part 
in  the  quarrel  which  centered  about  the  person  of  Klotz,  whose  chief 
claim  to  fame  seems  to  have  been  his  dispute  with  Lessing.  Riedel 
as  a  member  of  the  Klotzian  paity  had  been  involved  both  in  the 
recent  surreptitious  acquisition  from  the  pi  inter  of  advanced  copy  of 
the  revised  Fragmente  and  the  fairly  acrid  criticism  of  them  which  fol- 
lowed in  Klotz's  literary  organ,  so  that  Herder's  feeling  of  antagonism 
had  been  roused  to  a  high  pitch.  The  Second  and  Third  Waldchen 
had  left  little  doubt  with  regard  to  his  attitude  toward  Klotz  in  par- 
ticular, but  the  matter  had  become  somewhat  involved  by  the  fact 
that  his  own  criticism  of  Lessing  in  the  First  Waldchen  had  seemed 
to  indicate  a  split  in  the  forces  of  the  Anti-Klotzians,  which  we  know 
from  Herder's  correspondence  was  a  matter  of  no  little  solicitude. 
No  better  opportunity  could  have  been  afforded  Herder  than  Riedel's 
comparatively  recent  work  on  aesthetics^  not  only  to  make  his  posi- 
tion clear  as  regards  his  opponents  but  to  come  to  the  defense  of  the 
main  position  of  his  own  friends.  The  importance  of  this  allignment 
into  opposing  camps  is  fully  indicated  in  Herder's  correspondence, 
wherein  it  is  seen  that  he  puts  himself  definitely  on  the  side  of  Nicolai, 
Mendelssohn,  Lessing,  etc. 

Riedel's  work  was  in  no  sense  original,  being  in  fact  as  the  title 
indicates,  an  assembling  of  theories  particularly  from  German  and 
English  writers.  The  basis  for  his  discussion  was  the  Anti- Wolffian 
philosophy  which  seems  to  have  attached  itself  to  the  theories  of 
Hutcheson.  This  work  must  however  not  be  underestimated  since, 
as  Haym  suggests,^  it  tended  to  replace  the  ''shallow  Batteux  with 
the  newest  ideas  of  Home,  Burke,  Mendelssohn,  Sulzer,  Hagedorn 
and  Winckelmann  and  was  an  eclectic  treatment  of  everything  from 
Dubos  down  to  Herder  and  Lessing."  In  seeking  to  establish  a  true 
theory  of  aesthetics  over  against  the  theory  of  Riedel,  Herder  was  in 
turn  compelled  to  examine  previous  theory,  but  in  so  doing  he  at- 

1  Theorie  der  schonen  Kiinste  und  Wissenschaften.  Ein  Auszug  aus  den  Werken 
verschiedener  Schriftsteller.     Jena  1767. 

2  1,249. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    75 

tempts,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  following  pages,  to  retain  what  he 
considers  to  be  the  standpoint  of  German  philosophy.  Aside  from 
giving  an  insight  into  Herder's  conception  of  Leibnitz-Wolffian 
philosophy  the  work  has  particular  value  in  offering  authoritative 
evidence  of  Herder's  attitude  towards  the  theories  of  his  predecessors 
in  the  field  of  aesthetics. 

One  of  the  original  aims  of  the  Fourth  Waldchen  was  to  define 
the  nature  of  aesthetics  and  to  demonstrate  the  method  by  which  to 
arrive  at  a  complete  system.  Herder  hoped  by  making  this  clear  to 
further  the  ends  of  aesthetic  study  in  Germany,  putting  the  entire 
subject  on  a  thoroughly  scientific  and  philosophic  basis.  Not  losing 
sight  of  the  fact  that  Herder  may  have  taken  this  general  position 
to  motivate  certain  theories  of  his  own,  it  remains  true,  particularly 
in  view  of  Riedel's  work,  that  there  was  need  at  the  time  for  some 
one  to  define  with  some  precision  the  true  nature  of  aesthetic  inves- 
tigation and  theory. 

At  the  time  Herder  was  at  work  upon  his  essay  Sulzer's  plans  for 
the  publication  of  the  first  part  of  his  ''Allgemeine  Theorie  der 
schonen  Kunste  und  Wissenschaften"  were  reported  to  be  fast 
nearing  completion.  Herder  seems  not  to  have  called  into  question 
Sulzer's  own  notion  with  regard  to  the  real  nature  of  aesthetics,  nor 
the  proper  method  of  arriving  at  a  ''general  theory";  his  main  con- 
tention is  that  the  proposed  work  of  Sulzer,  valuable  as  it  might  be  of 
itself,  could  not  in  the  form  of  a  dictionary  lay  claim  to  being  a  theory 
of  aesthetics.  The  road  was  still  open  to  carry  out  the  end  he  pro- 
posed. "Perhaps  should  I  convince  Sulzer  of  my  point  of  view  (i.e., 
the  incompatibility  of  the  form  of  a  dictionary  with  a  general  theory  of 
aesthetics)  my  opinion  will  come  too  late  to  take  from  his  hands  the 
Penelope  work  before  he  has  unwoven  it  again. "^ 

The  Fourth  Waldchen  and  the  correspondence  bear  repeated 
witness  to  the  impatience  with  which  Herder  seems  to  have 
looked  forward  to  the  appearance  of  Sulzer's  proposed  work.  As  a 
member  of  the  Academy  at  Berlin  and  as  the  author  of  important 
articles  in  philosopihy,  ethics  and  aesthetics, as  well  as  in  the  field  of 
natural  science,  Sulzer  had  attained  a  position  of  commanding  impor- 
tance. This  accounts  to  a  degree  for  the  marked  tendency  in  Herder 
to  avoid  anything  but  a  most  discrete  criticism  of  Sulzer,  particularly 

•IV,  146. 


76    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

in  anticibation  of  a  work  which  had  as  many  possibilities  as  this 
"dictionary."  In  any  case  he  seems  awed  by  the  fact  that  behind 
such  a  wbrk  was  necessarily  the  examination  of  a  vast  amount  of  data, 
and  this/ we  know  was  one  of  the  chief  demands  which  Herder  made 
for  any  theory.  "And  I  read"  he  states  towards  the  end  of  the  second 
part  of  the  Waldchen^  "that  Sulzer's  dictionary  is  about  to  appear;^ 
evep  as  a  dictionary  this  will  be  an  agreeable  sight  and  perhaps  the  last 
preparatory  contri^Dution  to  the  theory  which  I  wish  and  seek  for. 
My  own  critical  Waldchen  (plural),  the  care  which  I  have  shown  in 
the  development  of  the  ideas  of  beauty  which  others  like  so  much  to 
confuse — these  bear  witness  as  to  whether  I  shall  deserve  to  be  one  of 
its  readers." 

It  seemed  advisable  to  make  these  preliminary  remarks  with  regard 
to  Herder's  position  in  order  to  make  clear  one  of  the  original 
purposes  which  prompted  Herder  to  write  this  work. 

(a)  Part  One  of  the  Fourth  Waldchen 
The  first  part  of  the  Waldchen  is  concerned  chiefly  with  the  effort 
to  establish  a  general  philosophic  basis  for  a  study  of  aesthetics.  It  is 
on  the  one  hand  an  attack  upon  the  "new  philosophy"  of  which 
Riedel  was  representative  and  on  the  other  a  reassertion  of  the  rights 
of  reason  inherent  in  the  Wolffian  method  It  represents  an  effort  to 
hold  firmly  to  a  Leibnitzian  standpoint  and  at  the  same  time  bring 
forward  a  theory  of  knowledge  which  shows  to  what  extent  he  was  a 
follower  of  Locke.  In  the  realm  of  aesthetics  it  was  a  definite  alUance 
with  the  Baumgarten  -  Sulzer  -  Mendelssohn  school  over  against 
that  of  Hutcheson-Riedel. 

1.  Riedel  as  a  representative  of  the  "new  philosophy"  held  that 
there  was  within  the  mind  an  intuitive  sense  which  passed  immediate 
judgment  upon  the  question  of  beauty,  just  as  there  was  an  intuitive 
sense  for  truth  and  for  moral  right  and  wrong.  These  three  faculties 
he  considered  to  be  taste,  conscience  and  common  sense.  It  was 
one  of  the  legacies  of  Hutcheson.® 

4 IV,  168  f . 

^  In  the  original  draft  Herder  had  incorrectly  stated  "was  ready  for  the  press." 
Cf.  IV,  168  footnote. 

^  IV,  5,  note  1.  "Man  sieht  die  sogenannten  Grundkrafte  einer  neuern  (zuerst: 
der  Crusisch-Darjesisch-Hutchesonschen)  Philosophie. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    77 

In  direct  contradiction  to  this  view  Herder  maintained  there 
was  only  one  original  faculty  of  the  human  soul,  so  that  what  ap- 
peared to  be  immediate  perceptions  of  beauty,  truth,  moral  right, 
are  not  intuitive,  but  represent  the  normal  activity  of  the  mind 
trained  by  experience  to  pass  immediate  judgment.  The  only 
immediate  cognition  in  the  sense  in  which  Riedel  meant  it  was  the 
original  feeling  that  ''I  am,  I  feel"  and  that  there  is  something  outside 
of  me.  Otherwise  he  held  that  impressions  from  without  would 
remain  isolated  impressions  except  for  the  fact  that  an  active  faculty 
within  the  human  mind  definitely  relates  and  connects  the  impres- 
sions. "To  feel  through  the  perceptive  faculty  of  my  organs  that 
there  is  something  outside  of  me  was  sensation;  the  least  discrimination 
was  judgment;  the  first  distinct  discrimination  in  what  was  at  first 
judgment,  is  a  double-reflection  of  the  activity  of  the  soul,  and  there- 
fore an  act  of  the  reason." 

This  position  was  further  emphasized  by  a  consideration  of  the 
origin  of  ideas  of  impenetrability,  color,  figure,  etc.,  which  are  not 
acquired  by  a  single  "feeling,"  but  by  many  single  sensations,  i.e. 
by  comparison,  by  judgment.  Our  conceptions  of  size,  distance, 
breadth  seem  to  be  perception,  immediate  "sensation,"  but  are  as  a 
matter  of  fact  acquired.  And  if  this  be  true  of  such  ideas  as  size, 
distance  etc.,  how  much  more  is  this  the  case  with  beauty,  goodness, 
truth.  It  is  of  course  the  familiar  reasoning  with  regard  to  the 
"primary"  and  "secondary"  qualities  of  reality.  In  place  therefore 
of  three  fundamental  faculties  there  is  only  one  activity  of  the  human 
soul  acting  upon  experience. 

The  chapter  ends  in  this  manner:  "The  mind  unconsciously  takes 
on  at  once  a  dark  and  sober  expression  when,  after  viewing  psychology 
in  the  simplicity  and  neatness  and  exact  precision  in  which  the  fol- 
lowers of  Leibnitz  had  formulated  it  and  in  which  Mendelssohn  and 
Sulzer  have  cleared  up  so  many  paradoxes^  in  the  field  of  dark  and 
confused  ideas,  it  must  wander  into  the  Crusius-Riedel  labyrinth, 
etc." 

2.  Riedel's  assumption  of  an  immediate  sense  of  beauty,  goodness 
and  truth  leads  Herder  to  a  further  analysis  of  the  inherent  weakness 
in  this  position  "which  is  destructive  at  once  of  all  philosophy." 
That  the  "philosophy"^  he  had  immediately  in  mind  was  the  Leib- 

'  The  use  of  the  term  paradox  has  no  doubt  direct  reference  to  Sulzer 's  essay: 
Erklarung  eines  psychologischen  paradoxen  Satzes,  etc.  1759. 

8  "Philosophic"  may  at  times  be  moreaccurately  translated  by  the  word  "science." 


78    he|ider's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

nitzian  is  clear  from  what  follows.  Philosophy  he  considers  to 
have  this  essential  aim:  ''It  seeks  to  bring  out  the  ideas  already  in 
us,  to  make  distinct  the  truths  which  we  only  knew  'darkly'  .  .  . 
To  dp  this  judgments  and  conclusions  are  necessary:  judgments 
which  begin  with  the  comparison  of  two  ideas  and  continue  in  the 
development  of  conclusions  until  the  relation  of  the  two  is  evident  " 
This  is  a  restatement  of  the  view  of  Leibnitz  that  the  soul  life  con- 
sists not  in  securing  new  material  from  without  but  in  the  develop- 
ment from  confused  ideas  which  make  up  the  soul  life  from  the 
first  to  distinct  ideas  which  is  the  ultimate  goal.  Consistently  with 
this  point  of  view  he  speaks  of  a  certain  educative  value  in  philosophy, 
although  he  departs  from  this  standpoint  later  in  the  work.  "Here 
lies  the  real  nature  and  the  formative  power  of  philosophy,  that 
through  it  I  see  truths  at  least  in  an  evidence,  in  a  certainty,  which  I 
either  did  not  see  before,  or  at  any  rate  did  not  see  distinctly:  that 
through  it  /  make  judgments  of  taste  with  a  certainty,  and  distinguish 
beauties  in  a  light  in  which  they  formerly  did  not  appear  to  me.   .   .  ." 

In  spite  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  Wolffian  system,  it  had  the 
merit  of  recognizing  the  function  of  the  reason  without  which  no 
philosophy  may  proceed,  reason  being  here  considered  by  Herder 
only  in  the  sense  of  a  means  at  man's  disposal  for  arriving  at  clear 
ideas  in  philosophy  and  science  and  not  as  an  adjunct  with  regard 
to  our  judgment  in  matters  of  beauty.  In  line  with  this  position  he 
considers  that  the  beauty  of  the  Baumgarten  system  lay  in  the  fact 
that  aesthetics  was  treated  from  the  standpoint  of  psychology,  in 
accordance  with  which  mental  experiences  with  respect  to  works  of 
art  were  the  subject  of  investigation,  i.e.  a  study  of  the  sensations  of 
beauty.  Baumgarten  represents  in  other  words  the  empirical 
method,  which  begins  with  the  experiences  of  the  human  soul  and 
works  up  to  a  complete  system.  Herder  concludes  that  "a  commen- 
tary of  Baumgarten  would  be  a  book  of  the  human  soul,  a  plan  for 
education  and  the  gate  to  an  encyclopedia  of  arts  and  letters." 

3.  In  opposition  to  Riedel  Herder  defends  the  methods  of  Aris- 
totle, Home  and  Baumgarten.  "The  sensation  of  beauty  is  the 
object  of  investigation  whether  you  search  for  it  in  the  work  of  art 
(Aristotle)  or  in  the  mind  (Home)  and  the  result  arrived  at  will  take 
the  form  of  definition  (Baumgarten) ."  Riedel's  difficulty  with  regard 
to  Aristotle  is  in  mistaking  scientific  observations  to  be  mere  rules  for 
the  creation  of  art.     Herder  is  very  well  aware  that  great  geniuses 


79 

do  not  proceed  from  "clear"  ideas  with  regard  to  the  laws  of  beauty. 
But  whether  Sophocles  was  conscious  or  not  of  the  laws  which 
Aristotle  found  in  his  dramas,  the  whole  of  Aristotle  is  there.  "Be- 
cause it  is  impossible  for  dissected  animals  to  increase,  shall  the 
anatomist  for  that  reason  cease  to  dissect?"^  Riedel's  objection 
to  Baumgarten  that  beauty  is  treated  in  the  same  manner  as  truth 
represents  a  similar  misunderstanding.  Herder  does  not  need  to 
be  told  that  "beauty  is  an  apprjTov  which  is  more  felt  than  taught." 
But  beauty  as  a  sensation,  and  the  sensation  of  beauty  as  an  object 
of  investigation  are  two  different  things.  Beauty,  he  admits,  is 
inexpressible  "im  Augenblicke  des  verworrenen  siissen  Gefuhls,  der 
sanften  Betaubung.  .  .  ."  but  there  is  nothing  to  hinder  our  making 
this  momentary  impression  the  subject  of  analysis.  The  immediate 
perception  of  beauty  is  a  question  of  "confused  ideas"  but  aesthetics 
as  such  has  for  its  end  truth  or  "distinct  ideas."  Home  like  Baum- 
garten was  representative  of  no  one  method  but  had  a  true  concep- 
tion of  aesthetics  which  united  all  three  methods. 

4.  Herder  makes  it  clear  at  this  point  that  Baumgarten  had  two 
distinct  conceptions  of  aesthetics  one  of  which  was  completely  un- 
tenable. While  he  was  correct  in  viewing  aesthetics  as  a  science,  it 
had  not  of  itself  anything  to  do  with  what  Baumgarten  was  pleased 
to  call  the  "art  of  beautiful  thinking"  (die  Kunst  schon  zu  denken). 
i.e.  poetry.  Baumgarten's  pupil  Meier  followed  the  incorrect  notion 
of  aesthetics  which  is  here  indicated  and  consequently  Herder  uses 
him  rather  than  Baumgarten  as  the  object  of  his  more  violent  criti- 
cism towards  the  end  of  the  section.  It  is  important  to  note  in  this 
connection  that  the  educative  value  of  aesthetics  is  here  denied, 
since  he  holds  that  it  can  do  no  more  towards  training  the  "lower 
faculties"  than  logic  the  "upper  faculties"  of  the  mind. 

5.  The  question  of  taste  is  next  taken  up  for  consideration.  The 
discussion  is  founded  on  the  principle  that  "we  are  all  capable  of 
perceiving  beauty  in  so  far  as  we  are  all  capable  of  sensuous  percep- 
tions (sinnHche  Vorstellungen.)"  The  germs  of  this  are  to  be  seen 
in  the  acceptance  of  Baumgarten's  definition  of  beauty  as  "sensuous 
perfection";  the  argument  however  is  reminiscent  of  Leibnitz.  "In 
accordance  with  the  measure  of  its  powers,  the  human  soul  within  the 
sphere  of  its  existence  has  formed  a  number  of  organs  to  perceive  that 

•IV,  19. 


80    hierder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

which  is  about  it,  to  receive  it  into  itself  for  its  own  enjoyment.  The 
number  of  these  organs  .  .  .  show  to  what  extent  man  is  a  sensuous 
creattire."^^  A  point  of  variation  between  men  is  therefore  located 
in  a^  original  variation  of  powers  within  the  soul.  "If  no  human 
soul  is  quite  like  another  so  also  in  its  nature  there  is  an  infinite 
variety  and  modification  in  its  powers,  while  having  the  same  quan- 
tity of  reality.  As  the  body  forms  itself  in  harmony  with  the  soul, 
this  inner  variation  evidences  itself  throughout  life,  so  that  in  one 
person  one  sense  predominates  over  the  other,  in  another  this  power 
is  greater,  etc.  This  then  is  equally  true  of  our  aesthetic  nature 
where  an  endless  variation  of  powers  is  possible." 

How  closely  the  Leibnitzian  philosophy  is  involved  in  this  is  seen 
in  what  follows  where  Herder  attempts  to  show  the  genesis  and 
development  of  the  human  soul.  Here  is  expressed  the  idea  that 
from  the  first  the  soul  has  a  conception  of  the  universe  (Begriff  des 
Weltalls)  and  its  development  consists  in  an  evolution  of  powers 
within  as  is  the  case  in  the  visible  world  of  the  tree  "which  the 
embryo  bears  within  itself  and  where  every  leaf  is  an  image  of  the 
whole."  "In  the  soul  is  everything  which  it  feels  outside  itself. — 
At  every  sensation  it  (the  embryo)  will  be  awakened  as  from  a  dream 
to  a  recollection  of  its  position  in  the  universe.     Thus  its  powers 

.  develop  through  a  suffering  from  without;  but  the  inner  activity  of 
development  is  its  end,  its  inner  dark  pleasure,  a  constant  perfecting 
of  itself." 

So  far  reflection  has  played  no  part,  so  that  Herder  again  takes  up 
the  question  of  the  origin  of  ideas  within  the  mind.  Repeated  sensa- 
tions from  without  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  the  same  sensation 
and  the  soul  admits  a  truth  outside  itself.  The  mind  was  not  con- 
scious of  reflection  but  sUch  was  its  origin,  and  through  the  habit  of 
receiving  the  same  sensation  the  mind  accepts  it  as  immediate  percep- 
tion. Our  notions  of  figure,  form,  size  and  distance  represent  the  same 
active  participation  of  the  mind  although  all  the  mechanical  processes 
may  be  forgotten  and  only  effects  are  left.  The  ordering  of  the 
materials  of  thought  continues.  The  time  comes  when  things  are 
considered  in  relation  to  ourselves,  and  the  notion  of  good   arises; 

/ideas  of  order,  of  harmony,  of  perfection  follow  and  since  beauty 
is  only  sensuous  perfections^  also  the  idea  of  beauty.    The  point  here 

"  IV,  28. 

"  Baumgarten. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    81 

emphasized  is  that  in  the  process  of  securing  ideas  the  soul  actually 
exerts  its  active  capacity  of  thought  with  relation  to  experience, 
although  this  activity  of  the  mind  may  not  be  apparent  and  we 
have  the  impression  of  immediate  sensations  or  perceptions.  In 
fact,  for  practical  purposes  he  sees  no  reason  why  they  should  not  be 
so  considered. 

A  new  point  is  now  brought  in.  Sulzer  had  noted  the  effect  of 
early  impressions  upon  the  mind  and  on  this  basis  had  shown  that 
through  a  sort  of  association  of  ideas  our  later  judgments  are  affected. 
The  importance  of  this  position  is  that  a  basis  for  a  variation  in 
judgments,  in  taste,  is  located  in  environment,  while  above  the 
emphasis  was  on  original  variations  in  soul  faculties.  With  direct 
reference  to  Sulzer  Herder  develops  the  following:  "Our  childhood 
is  a  dark  dream  of  'Vorstellungen,'  but  in  this  dark  dream  the 
soul  works  with  all  its  powers.  What  it  seizes  upon  it  incorporates 
into  the  innermost  part  of  its  being;  it  gradually  awakens  from  its 
sleep.  .  .  .  These  dark  ideas  (recollections  of  childhood)  lie  in  us 
by  the  thousands:  they  form  the  unusual,  the  peculiar,  and  the 
strange  in  our  conceptions  and  forms  of  beauty  and  pleasure:  they 
often  cause  us  to  feel  a  sense  of  repulsion  or  attraction  without  our 
knowing  it  or  wishing  it:  they  arise  in  us  as  latent  impulses  to  sud- 
denly love  this  person  or  hate  that  one  .  .  .  they  are  the  dark 
grounds  in  us  which  change  and  shade  the  images  and  colors  which 
come  to  us  later.  Sulzer  has  explained  a  few  paradoxes  in  this 
depth  of  the  human  mind;  perhaps  with  these  remarks  I  am  throwing 
in  a  few  rays,  which  may  awaken  another  psychologist  to  bring  in 
more  light." 

The  chapter  ends  with  a  statement  in  regard  to  taste.  "When 
our  soul  has  practised  so  long  in  passing  judgment  upon  the  perfec- 
tion and  imperfection  in  things,  when  judgment  has  become  as  ready, 
evident,  active  as  a  sensation,  then  taste  is  there,  'an  habitual 
faculty  of  judging  the  sensuous  perfection  and  imperfection  of 
things,  as  if  one  perceived  them  immediately.'  " 

6.  Herder's  objection^  to  the  acceptance  of  Riedel's  innate  taste 
was  that  it  did  away  with  the  universal  "character  of  beauty  and 
took  from  it  all  objective  rules,  so  that  taste  would  differ  as  indi- 
viduals differed.  To  say  that  beauty  was  perceived  through  the 
senses  (and  he  ridicules  Riedel  for  attempting  to  demonstrate  this 
to  Mendelssohn)  and  on  the  other  hand  to  say  that  we  have  an  innate 


82    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

sense  of  what  is  beautiful  is  to  be  self-contradictory,  and  that  is  the 
crux  of  the  difficulty.  "Is  the  feeling  of  beauty  innate?  Yes,  but 
only  as/aesthetic  nature,  which  has  the  faculty  and  the  organs  to 
perceiVe  sensuous  perfection  and  which  has  its  pleasure  in  developing 
these  faculties  and  using  these  organs  to  enrich  itself  with  ideas  of 
this  Kind.  Everything  is  in  him,  but  only  in  embryo  for  develop- 
ment] .  .  .  everything  comes  from  a  single  faculty  of  the  soul,  the 
securing  of  perceptions  (sich  Vorstellungen  zu  fiihlen)  and  by  this 
means  to  secure  its  pleasure.  How  beautiful  the  human  soul  be- 
comes I  Unity  at  the  basis,  thousand  fold  variety  in  its  development, 
perfection  in  the  sum  of  the  whole.  None  of  these  three  fundamental 
faculties  is  ready  made  by  nature,  but  everything  is  formed  from 
one,  to  be  raised  up  to  the  most  manifold  perfection. "^^ 

Common  sense,  conscience,  taste  are  then  not  innate  faculties 
but  represent  an  acquired  facility  in  judgment.  The  ''common 
sense"  of  the  Greenlander  and  the  Hottentot  is  not  our  common 
sense,  but  is  proportionate  to  their  training  and  their  world.  It  is 
possible  for  whole  departments  of  our  soul  to  remain  empty  and  for 
whole  faculties  to  remain  latent,  if  they  are  not  awakened.  Our 
common  sense  knows  no  truths  it  has  not  learned,  not  one  truth  it 
has  not  had  opportunity  to  acquire.  ''I  find  a  constantly  active 
force  within  me  to  have  knowledge,  and  where  this  has  been  able  to 
work,  where  it  has  had  opportunity  to  have  perceptions,  form  judg- 
ments and  draw  conclusions,  this  common  sense  will  be  found  to 
exist.  ...  I  see  no  inner,  immediate,  universal,  infallible  teacher 
of  truth;  I  see  a  facility  in  the  use  of  our  cognitive  faculties  dependent 
upon  the  measure  of  this  development." 

In  a  similar  way  Herder  takes  up  the  question  of  conscience  with 
relation  to  what  is  morally  good  or  bad;  but  nowhere  does  he  find 
judgment  more  apparent  than  in  the  question  of  beauty,  i.e.  taste. 
"If  taste  is  nothing  but  judgment  with  regard  to  certain  classes  of 
objects,  then  it  is  originally  formed  as  a  judgment;  it  will  be  lacking 
in  those  things  completely  where  this  judgment  could  not  be  formed; 
it  will  err  completely  in  those  things  where  this  judgment  was  falsely 
formed;  it  is  coarse  or  weak,  strong  or  delicate,  according  to  that 
upon  which  we  have  secured  our  judgment.  It  is  not  a  fundamental 
faculty,  a  universal  power  of  the  soul;  it  is  an  habitual  application 
of  our  judgment  to  objects  of  beauty." 

»IV,34. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    83 

Herder  now  shows  the  possibility  for  a  variation  in  our  senses 
themselves  due  to  the  varying  opportunity  which  may  exist  for  them 
in  the  environment  in  which  the  individual  develops.  "A  spirit  thus 
formed  for  music  can  be  a  very  different  creature  from  the  genius 
who  has  been  formed  for  the  plastic  arts  in  the  same  degree  that  the 
former  was  for  tonal  art:  the  one  is  purely  eye,  the  other  ear;  the 
one  to  see  beauty,  the  other  to  hear  it."  These  men  would  have 
very  different  ideas  of  beauty.  But  from  the  variation  of  taste  in 
such  cases  one  may  not  conclude  there  are  not  uniform  laws  of  grace 
and  beauty.  The  variation  lies  in  the  sense  and  accordingly  Herder 
points  out  the  possibility  of  valuable  conclusions  should  the  one 
whose  ear  or  eye  has  been  thus  trained  have  sufficient  of  the  scientific 
(philosophisch)  spirit  to  analyze  his  own  sense,  and  Herder  suggests 
the  examination  of  "men  who  by  nature  have  been  born  for  one  art 
or  another." 

The  variation  of  taste  due  to  geographical  location  does  not 
change  the  principle  above  stated.  That  true  taste  does  not  vary  is 
proved  for  him  by  the  fact  that  wheresoever  born  men  "will  always 
find  the  song  of  the  nightingale  and  the  simple  charms  of  nature 
beautiful."  Where  a  variation  of  taste  exists  one  may  arrive  at 
what  is  true  taste  by  attempting  to  account  for  the  variation.  In 
other  words,  to  explain  the  variation,  is  to  confirm  the  rule.  "Na- 
tions, centuries,  times  and  men  do  not  all  attain  a  similar  degree  of 
aesthetic  culture  and  this  puts  its  seal  on  the  variation  of  taste." 
Here  follows  a  two-page  quotation  from  Diderot  which  had  been 
written  to  show  that  only  in  past  ages  are  moeurs  to  be  found  which 
are  truly  poetic.  Herder  uses  the  passage  for  a  different  end.  He 
concludes  that  "Greek,  Gothic,  Moorish  taste  in  architecture  and 
sculpture,  in  mythology  and  poetry,  were  not  the  same,  and  may  be 
explained  only  on  the  basis  of  times,  customs,  peoples,  etc.  There 
is  only  one  principle  of  taste,  but  the  understanding  and  application 
of  it  varies.  Does  not  this  Proteus  of  taste  which  changes  in  all 
climes,  in  every  change  of  atmosphere  which  it  inhales,  does  it  not 
prove  in  the  very  reason  for  its  change  that  beauty  is  one,  just  as 
perfection  is  one  and  truth  is  one?"  "There  is  an  ideal  for  every  art 
for  all  kinds  of  poetry  and  for  taste  in  general  and  it  is  to  be  found 
in  peoples,  in  times,  subjects  and  works." 

With  this  section  Herder  abandons  the  general  theme  and  takes 
up  in  the  following  chapters  those  particular  theories  which  are  more 
specific  and  more  original. 


84    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

/        (b)  Part  Two  of  the  Fourth  Waldchen 

Tlie  second  part  of  the  Waldchen  is  immediately  concerned  with 
a  theory  of  aesthetics  that  takes  into  account  an  essential  distinction 
in  tUe  senses  themselves. 

i.  Herder  points  out  first  of  all  that  the  terminology  of  beauty 
had  been  determined  largely  from  objects  of  sight  and  applied  meta- 
phorically to  the  objects  of  the  hearing  and  imagination.  The 
development  of  "schon"  from  "schauen"  seemed  to  him  to  exemplify 
this !  The  reason  lay  in  tl\e  fact  that  objects  of  sight  were  of  such  a 
nature  that  they  could  be  coolly  examined  and  hence  a  terminology 
based  on  sight  was  the  natural  result.  He  advises  therefore  a 
thorough  study  of  the  objects  of  sight  since  "such  a  theory  would 
teach  us  to  see  beauty  before  we  apply  it  to  reflected  objects  of  the 
imagination,  and  before  we  speak  of  it  as  the  blind  man  does  of  a 
mirror.   .  .  .     Here  aesthetics  awaits  its  optical  Newton." 

Expressions  applicable  to  aesthetic  pleasure  through  the  medium 
of  the  hearing  have  been  limited,  but  that  this  need  not  be  so  is 
attested  by  the  richer  vocabulary  of  the  Italians  with  reference  to 
music  and  by  the  case  of  the  blind  who  show  themselves  capable  of 
much  finer  nuances  of  sensation  than  those  who  see.  In  anticipation, 
therefore,  of  his  own  theory  he  proposes  that  a  philosopher  treat 
such  a  theory  from  the  standpoint  not  of  harmony  but  of  tone 
(Wohllaut)  which  he  holds  to  be  the  elemental  consideration.  This, 
he  states,  would  be  the  ''second  portal  to  this  aesthetic  structure." 

Feeling,  i.e.  touch,  is  the  sense  which  ought  first  of  all  to  be 
examined  whereas  in  the  past  it  had  been  relegated  to  a  position  of 
no  importance  under  the  name  of  a  rude  or  coarse  sense,  (unfeinere 
Sinne)^^  and  excluded  from  the  arts  of  beauty.  The  very  term 
aesthetics,  which  "is  a  philosophy  of  feeling,"  shows  that  it  should 
occupy  a  commanding  position,  a  statement  which  shows  a  con- 
fusion with  regard  to  "feeling"  which  not  infrequently  occurs.^^ 

In  opposition  to  what  he  considered  was  the  general  opinion  and 
in  particular  the  view  of  Mendelssohn,  he  states  that  it  is  not  our 
sense  of  sight  which  gives  us  our  conceptions  of  bodies  and  forms, 
but  that  through  this  sense  we  acquire  our  ideas  merely  of  surfaces, 
colors  and  images,  and  hence  the  necessity  of  taking  touch  into 

"  This  is  particularly  applicable  to  Sulzer. 
"  See  Haym:  Herder. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    85 

account  where  bodies  are  concerned.  As  a  proof  of  his  statement 
he  gives  a  synopsis  of  Diderot's  Letter  on  the  Blind,  omitting  all  the 
metaphysical  considerations  which  were  Diderot's  chief  concern. 
The  case  of  Chesselden  is  however  discussed  with  greater  detail  than 
in  Diderot,  his  source  being  here,  as  we  learn  from  a  note  to  his 
"Plastik,"  the  Englishman  Robert  Smith.  He  notes  further  the 
contribution  of  Rousseau  (Emile)  who  wished  to  make  practical 
application  of  this  principle  to  education  by  bringing  about  a  more 
specialized  development  of  this  ''truer"  sense.  This  does  not  prevent 
Herder  from  implying  that  the  application  of  this  principle  to  aesthet- 
ics was  original  and  stating  that  it  "will  give  it  a  completely  new 
form.  Everything  in  factv^hich  is  beauty  of  form,  corporal  beauty, 
is  not  a  visual,  but  a  tactuaF  (f iihlbar)  conception;  each  one  of  these 
beauties  must  be  sought  for  originally  in  the  sense  of  touch."  ''With- 
out such  a  distinction  there  is  the  same  confusion  as  when  the  blind 
say,  'Now  I  understand,  red  is  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet. '  " 

Taste  and  smell  he  excludes  from  consideration,  holding  them 
(as  did  Sulzer)  to  be  variations  of  the  sense  of  touch. 

2.  Herder  returns  now  to  the  general  question  of  aesthetics  which 
characterized  the  first  Part.  He  speaks  broadly  of  the  necessity 
of  considering  the  senses  separately  and  points  out  the  essential 
unity  within  the  human  mind  for  which  the  organs  of  sense  are  as  so 
many  streams  flowing  into  an  ocean.^^  Once  more  he  strikes  at 
what  he  considers  the  prevalent  method  of  the  time:  "Their  defini- 
tions begin  'von  oben  herab,'  from  beauty  and  the  sublime;  they  begin 
with  that  which  should  be  last,  namely,  beauty."  One  should  begin 
with  data.  It  is  a  question  of  analysis  which  is  considered  the  only 
true  philosophic  method.  He  wants  above  all  a  physiology  of  the 
senses.^^ 

The  chapter  ends  with  a  discussion  of  the  confusion  in  philosophy 
due  to  the  conventional  manner  in  which  words  are  accepted  without 
due  regard  to  the  original  sensuous  impression  which  these  words 
were  intended  to  give.  A  theory  of  the  origin  of  language  is  here 
touched  upon. 

^  Sulzer's  figure  is  of  a  spring  as  the  constant  source  of  many  streams,  which 
indicates  to  what  greater  extent  the  contribution  of  the  senses  is  emphasized  in  Herder. 

"  Sulzer,  we  recall,  desired  the  physics  of  the  senses,  and  his  theory  illustrated 
this,  and  here  again  Herder  is  seen  in  advance  of  Sulzer. 


y.  The  discussion  is  now  taken  up  where  it  was  interrupted  by 
the  generalizations  of  chapter  2. 

/  This  new  theory  of  aesthetics  based  on  the  senses  does  not  mean 
that  the  theory  of  Lessing  proposed  in  the  Laokoon  is  fully  aban- 
doned. The  relation  of  the  "parts"  of  an  object  is  an  essential 
factor  in  the  new  position,  but  the  attempt  is  here  made  to  put  the 
matter  on  a  basis  that  is  more  representative  of  the  facts  and  more 
inclusive  of  the  entire  field  of  art.  In  making  the  division  Herder 
takes  into  account  two  things:  whether  the  effect  seems  to  be  with- 
out as  in  the  case  of  objects  of  sight,  or  more  within  as  in  the  case  of 
the  objects  of  hearing  and  feeling,  and  in  the  second  place  as  to  how 
far  the  objects  present  themselves  to  the  senses  essentially  in  succes- 
sion or  simultaneously.  This  leads  therefore  to  a  threefold  division 
which  represents  a  step  in  advance  of  the  First  Waldchen: 

1.  Sight:  Parts  are  without  and  yet  coexistent. 

2.  Hearing:  parts  within  and  in  succession. 

3.  Touch:  parts  within  and  coexistent. 

The  first  has  to  do  with  surfaces,  the  second  with  tones  and  the  third 
with  solid  bodies;  a  sense  therefore  for  surfaces,  for  tones,  for 
bodies,  and,  when  it  comes  to  beauty,  for  beauty  in  surfaces,  in  tones 
and  in  bodies.  The  three  arts  are  painting,  music  and  sculpture. 
Poetry  is  excluded  from  these  categories  since,  as  is  indicated  later, 
it  does  not  deal  with  natural  signs  and  borrows  from  all  arts  equally. 
Sculpture  is  considered  first.  The  impossibility  of  treating 
sculpture  from  the  standpoint  of  sight  is  effectively  answered  by  the 
statement  that  the  mind  left  to  the  sense  of  sight  would  never  secure 
a  conception  of  solid  bodies.  It  is  a  question  therefore  of  touch. 
This  permits  him  to  bring  into  use  the  theory  of  Hogarth  relative  to 
the  line  of  beauty  and  to  find  in  the  "elliptical  line"  rather  than  in 
color  or  proportion  of  parts,  the  essential  beauty  of  sculpture.  To 
this  idea  is  added  the  notion  that  the  form  of  a  body  bears  an  organic 
relation  to  the  soul  within.^'  Beauty  therefore  does  not  rest  with 
the  mere  line  of  beauty,  but  lies  deeper.  "To  describe  a  painting 
one  describes  what  is  before  him,  one  shows  figures  in  their  relation- 
ships; to  describe  an  Apollo,  the  touch,  the  imagination  takes  the 
place  of  the  colder  eye.     One  feels  Hercules  in  the  whole  body  and 

1^  Cf.  Herder's  early  essay  on  Schonheit  als  Bote  der  Seele.    One  sees  clearly  the 
influence  of  Winckelmann  throughout  this  section. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    87 

the  body  in  all  its  actions."  In  painting  totality  is  in  the  entire 
grouping,  in  the  entire  situation,  wherein  each  individual  is  a  part 
only  of  a  larger  whole.  In  sculpture  each  figure  is  a  totality  by 
itself. 

The  question  now  as  to  whether  art  shall  deal  with  beautiful 
bodies  is  for  Herder  settled.  Where  the  individual  body  counts  for 
less  and  where  the  effect  is  in  the  whole,  as  in  painting,  it  is  not  a 
requirement.^^  In  sculpture  it  is  an  absolute  rule.  Here  the 
force  of  Hogarth's  theory  is  evidenced.  *'The  ugly  and  disgusting 
statue  which  I  touch  in  my  thought,  and  continue  to  feel  in  its  dis- 
tortion and  its  'Unnatur'  is  disagreeable.  Instead  of  feeling  beauty, 
I  come  upon  breaks  in  the  body,  which  cause  a  cold  tremor  to  pass 
through  my  limbs;  I  feel  an  unharmonious  vibration  of  my  nerves  of 
feeling  and  an  inner  disturbance  of  my  nature." 

On  this  theory  of  touch  he  disposes  of  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  sculptor  shall  depict  hair  on  ''Myron's  Cow"  or  whether  statues 
should  be  painted.  It  gives  him  the  explanation  he  desires  with 
regard  to  the  characteristic  features  of  Greek  art,  the  nude,  the 
clinging  drapery,  the  beautiful  contour.  Sculpture  must  be  made 
with  due  regard  to  touch  which  even  in  the  imagination  passes  over 
bodies  and  reveals  the  soul  within.  It  must  work  essentially  for  this 
sense  and  not  for  the  sense  of  sight.  This  gives  him  the  standpoint 
for  defending  the  ^^edle  Einfalt  und  selige  Ruhe  of  Greek  art."  Here 
can  be  nothing  ugly,  nothing  distorted  or  broken  in  its  main  expres- 
sion, for  if  the  inner  feeling  or  touch  stumbles  upon  some  malforma- 
tions, it  is  repelled  with  horror,  and  both  exaggerations  and  ugly 
features  arising  merely  from  touch,  prevent  a  free  and  pleasing  play 
of  the  imagination.  "Selige  Ruhe^'  is  the  first  condition  since  this 
alone  gives  room  for  the  beauty  which  eternally  pleases  the  touch 
and  cradles  the  imagination  into  gentle  dreams. 

At  the  close  of  the  section  he  states  that  he  ''has  gathered  many 
other  observations  and  has  found  important  explanations  with 
regard  to  this  art,  so  that  he  has  not  only  a  new  logic  for  the  lover  of 
art,  but  also  a  new  way  for  artists  by  which  they  may  approach  the 
perfection  of  the  ancients,  so  that  it  would  be  most  agreeable  time 
spent  to  gather  these  observations  under  the  eye  of  an  artist  and 
bring  them  to  scientific  perfection." 

^8  Mendelssohn's  theory  of  "mixed  sensations"  practically  setUed  this  question. 


A.  A  theory  of  painting  is  now  developed  based  solely  upon  sight, 
an  illustration  for  which  is  found  in  the  case  of  Chesselden  mentioned 
in  Diderot's  letter.  He  notes  that  the  blind  restored  to  sight  see  all 
/objects  as  a  great  color  picture  surface  immediately  upon  the  eye. 
The  case  is  the  same  with  children  iSrst  learning  to  see.  The  sky, 
woods,  etc.,  are  all  surf  aces.  Here  Herder  finds  the  first  material  for 
painting.  It  imitates  this  great  tablet  of  nature  with  all  its  images 
in  the  small  and  like  nature  puts  everything  upon  a  single  surface. 
Therefore  the  representation  of  things  upon  a  flat  surface  in  accord- 
ance with  their  external  appearance  or  form  as  they  appear  in  a 
straight  "continuum"  with  others — this  is  the  primal  conception  of 
painting. 

Thus  then  there  is  a  distinction  from  sculpture.  Sculpture  imi- 
tates things  only  as  substance  existing  of  itself,  but  never  in  a  "con- 
tinuum" with  others;  a  sculptor  can  make  shepherdesses  but  never  a 
shepherd  landscape.^®  Painting  can  depict  everything,  and  this 
everything  is  its  field.  It  never  represents  things  by  themselves,  but 
in  the  expansum  of  visible  things.  Shepherds  are  never  painted  as 
shepherds,  but  as  they  appear  in  their  shepherd  world.  The  very 
thing  that  sculpture  cannot  do,  namely  depict  the  expansum  of 
things,  is  the  essence  of  painting." 

In  the  main  therefore  no  art  can  take  another  for  a  model. 
Brooks  and  trees  are  for  example  excluded  from  sculpture.  The  phe- 
nomena of  space  as  such  are  the  subjects  of  painting;  tangible  beautiful 
bodies  are  the  subject  for  sculpture.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  com- 
position, the  arrangement  of  parts  plays  an  important  role  in  painting. 

The  question  of  light  is  an  important  factor.  The  difference 
between  painting  and  etching  is  that  in  the  latter  case  light  is  treated 
as  an  unbroken  whole,  whereas  color  tends  to  final  perfection,  giving 
a  greater  element  of  truth  to  appearances  in  space. 

Returning  to  the  question  of  sculpture  he  finds  that  a  theory  of 
sight  enters  into  the  explanation  of  two  phenomena  in  the  realm  of 
art.  The  first  of  these  was  the  remarkable  skill  shown  by  the  Greeks 
in  being  able  to  make  figures  which  close  at  hand  were  without  form 
and  proportion,  but  which  at  a  distance  fulfill  their  end  as  statues. 
This  he  felt  was  the  abandoning  of  one  art  to  make  it  an  illusion  for 
another  sense.     The  second  of  these  theories  is  a  theory  of  colossal 

^"  Neither  Winckelmann  nor  Lessing  found  place  for  landscapes,  nor  were  they 
particularly  popular  in  Dubos  and  Batteux. 


figures  in  Aegyptian  art,  which  is  based  directly  upon  the  experience 
of  Chesselden. 

5.  The  digression  concerning  the  colossal  figures  in  Aegyptian  art 
is  continued  through  this  chapter.  The  chapter  closes  with  the 
expression  of  the  need  for  a  ''physical  and  mathematical  optics  of 
beauty,"  for  a  ''science  of  beautiful  phenomena"  such  as  a  Lambert 
might  write.  Not  only  the  character  of  the  German  language  which 
is  adapted  to  fine  analysis,  but  the  fact  that  there  exist  already  in 
the  works  of  Winckelmann,  Mengs,  Hagedorn,  etc.,  splendid  contri- 
butions to  the  theory  of  beauty  (beauty  however  treated  merely  from 
the  standpoint  of  sight)  convince  Herder  that  the  Germans  are  best 
able  to  carry  this  out. 

6.  This  and  the  following  two  chapters  deal  with  the  sense  of 
hearing.  The  aesthetics  of  hearing  is  seen  to  differ  from  that  of  sight 
as  the  ear  differs  from  the  eye,  as  tone  from  color,  space  from  time. 
Beauty  for  the  eye  is  before  us,  is  colder,  more  easy  to  analyze  and 
remains  where  it  may  be  found  again;  the  pleasure  of  tonal  art  is 
within  us;  it  works  as  a  sort  of  intoxication;  it  vanishes  and  leaves 
as  little  trace  as  a  ship  in  the  sea  or  the  arrow  in  the  air.  One  cannot 
put  this  inner  feeling  outside  oneself  and  separate  the  indivisible  tone 
as  is  the  case  with  color;  one  cannot  feel  and  at  the  same  time  think 
and  capture  the  fleeting  moment  and  fix  it  for  eternity.  Such  are 
the  difficulties  which  Herder  finds  in  this  subject. 

He  recognizes  the  work  done  by  Euler,  Dalembert,  Diderot  etc., 
but  indicates  that  physics  and  mathematics  applied  to  the  question 
of  music  can  only  deal  with  harmony  and  with  sound  as  such;  it 
cannot  clear  up  the  question  of  tone  which  is  the  fundamental  con- 
sideration. The  number  of  "beats"  cannot  tell  the  quality  of  a  tone 
which  is  the  elemental  consideration. 

The  objection  to  a  theory  based  on  harmony,  is  that  the  ear  as 
ear  does  not  hear  relations.  Sulzer's  theory  of  the  individual  moment 
wherein  the  pleasure  is  proportioned  to  the  number  of  beats  which  the 
ear  detects,  is  dismissed  by  Herder  on  the  grounds  that  it  explains 
the  limits  of  sensation  but  does  not  explain  how  two  instruments 
producing  the  same  tone  occasion  different  degrees  of  pleasure,  or 
how  two  men  with  different  degrees  of  sensitiveness  are  differently 
affected  by  the  same  tone. 

The  explanations  offered  have  failed  to  distinguish  sound  from 
tone.     The  general  questions  of  strength  and  weakness,  of  velocity 


90    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

/ 

etc.,  may  be  taken  up  by  the  mathematician  and  the  physicist,  who 
may  thereby  arrive  at  a  theory  of  sound  which  strikes  the  ear,  but 
a/ the  question  of  a  simple  tone,  analogous  to  a  simple  line,^^  is  no 
longer  a  question  of  mere  physics  but  inner  feeling.  It  is  ultimately 
not  a  question  of  acoustics  but  of  a  "physics  of  the  soul."  As  far  as 
physical  origin  is  concerned  sound  and  tone  are  the  same.  That  the 
tone  is  the  ultimate  basis  for  differentiation  is  illustrated  in  the  case 
of  the  different  effect  produced  by  the  same  tone  played  on  a  violin 
and  on  a  flute.  Sound  is  therefore  a  corporeal  aggregate  of  tones, 
and  tones  the  single  powerful  moments. 

7.  It  is  not  a  question  of  high  or  low  tones,^^  loud  or  weak,^^ 
but  the  sensation  of  the  essential  character  of  tone  (Empfind- 
barkeit  der  Beschaffenheit).  With  this  there  follows  a  physiological 
explanation  of  tone.  Just  as  when  singing  into  a  piano  causes  the 
vibration  of  the  corresponding  string,  so  we  have  by  analogy  an 
explanation  of  the  varying  sensitiveness  to  tones.  We  must  go 
beyond  the  inner  structure  of  the  ear  which  shows  by  what  means 
sound  is  prepared  for  its  reception  by  the  nerves,  and  consider  the 
variation  to  be  found  there.  "In  the  variation  of  the  nerve  branches 
of  hearing  are  to  be  found  the  essential  and  specific  differences  in 
tones  and  tone  qualities,  that  is  in  sounds,  in  so  far  as  the  variation 
in  quality  may  be  the  source  of  pleasant  or  unpleasant  musical  tone. 
Sound,  like  a  body,  or  its  element,  the  tone,  like  a  line,  strikes  its 
string  in  playing  on  the  hearing;  and  on  whether  it  does  so  in  this 
direction  or  that,  homogeneously  or  not,  depends  the  disagreeable  or 
on  the  other  hand  the  smooth  quality  of  tone.  A  tone  is  disagreeable 
which  causes  a  vibration  in  the  nerve  in  opposing  directions,  so  that 
all  the  fibers  are  put  into  unnatural  motion  against  each  other,  as  if 
the  nerve  would  break.  ...  A  tone  is  considered  agreeable  when 
all  the  fibers  of  the  nerve  are  affected  in  a  homogeneous  and  har- 
monious manner.  Obviously  there  are  two  degrees  of  agreeableness. 
The  nerve  may  be  drawn  homogenously,  but  the  fibres  suddenly 
made  more  tense;  or  it  may  be  permitted  to  slacken  and  a  gentle 
releasing  of  the  fibers  occurs.  The  former  corresponds  to  what  we 
call  the  sublime  and  the  latter  to  what  we  know  as  beauty." 

2°  Sulzer  made  the  same  analogy.    The  theory  of  the  line  is  of  course  from  Hogarth. 

21  Euler. 

22  Sulzer. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    91 

That  the  origin  of  this  theory  lay  with  Burke  is  left  beyond  doubt 
by  Herder's  own  statement.  *'We  have  a  British  empirical  philoso- 
pher, who  has  followed  these  two  feelings  deep  down  into  our  nature 
and  as  it  were  to  the  very  fibres  that  surround  the  soul  and  every- 
where has  reduced  the  sublime  to  a  feeling  of  tension  and  beauty 
to  a  feeling  of  relaxation  of  the  nerves — it  is  Burke,  the  author  of  the 
philosophical  ''inquiry  into  Beauty  and  the  Sublime,"  whom 
Mendelssohn  made  known  to  us  and  whom  Lessing  has  long  promised 
us  (in  translation) .23  The  objections  to  Burke  are  that  he  did  not 
carry  his  examination  far  enough,  and  Herder  points  out  the  road 
to  what  he  calls  the  "Pathetik  of  all  simple  musical  accents,  which 
would  examine  the  relation  which  certain  tones  and  their  effect 
upon  the  brain  would  have  to  certain  sensations  of  the  soul;  how 
certain  sounds  occasion  certain  states  of  mind,  and  how  there  is 
after  all  a  material  soul  whose  external  points  of  contact  would  not 
completely  disappear  before  investigation." 

A  historical  application  of  this  theory  follows  wherein  an  attempt 
is  made  to  explain  primitive  music  as  a  pleasure  in  tones  in  con- 
trast with  the  modern  interest  in  harmony.  The  relation  of  individ- 
ual tones  to  individual  passions  and  ideas  is  seen  in  the  songs  of 
war,  of  peace,  of  anger,  etc.  Once  again  the  case  of  the  blind  is 
brought  forward  whose  sense  for  the  elements  of  sound  is  keener  and 
who  feel  more  in  a  single  tone  (Anton)  than  we  in  the  harmony  of  a 
whole  piece.     And  what  is  true  of  him  is  true  of  the  ancients. 

8.  The  idea  that  sound  as  such  is  external,  but  that  tone  is  more 
in  the  soul  itself,  that  sound  affects  the  external  hearing  and  tone 
the  internal  hearing  is  more  fully  developed.  The  fact  that 
hearing  lies  closer  to  the  soul  is  therefore  given  as  a  reason  for  the 
superiority  of  hearing  over  other  senses. 

There  follows  then  a  theory  of  the  history  of  music.  Music  he 
considers  not  so  natural  to  man  as  to  birds.  The  first  expressions 
of  pain  or  pleasure  in  man  are  inarticulate,  but  as  such  are  a  basis 
for  language.  This  first  rude  language  was  not  music  in  that  it 
lacked  a  pleasant  succession  of  tones.  Song  is  however  the  language 
of  birds  since  that  is  expressive  of  the  bird  itself.  They  have  their 
language  from  the  first  as  a  kind  of  instinct,  while  man  only  gradu- 
ally arrives  at  a  language.  Music  as  such  did  not  arrive  through  an 
imitation  of  birds,  as  some  had  thought,  but  was  itself  an  expression 

23  IV,  103. 


of  passion,  of  feeling.  Thus  poetry  and  music  were  inseparable 
sisters.  A  true  relation  was  seen  early  in  Italy  where  poems  were 
sung  and  where  melodrama  was  still  melodious  poetry.  The  change 
cande  with  the  introduction  of  instruments  which  tended  to  make 
language  more  philosophical  and  prosaic  and  led  to  the  introduction 
of  harmony.     In  this  latter  art  he  held  that  the    Germans   excel. 

9.  Dance  is  now  considered  as  an  expression  of  the  passions  to 
the  same  extent  music  is.  In  the  man  of  nature  the  accents  of 
passion  are  from  the  innermost  soul.  Gestures  become  a  visible 
language.  Language,  music  and  dance  all  have  their  rhythms. 
Dance  is  seen  as  the  consummation  of  all  the  arts.  This,  rather  than 
painting,  he  believes  deserves  the  name  of  "stumme  Dichtkunst." 

10.  Herder  summarizes  the  work  thus  far  as  follows:  *'We  have 
gone  through  the  senses  of  beauty  in  order  to  assign  to  each  its  chief 
art,  and  through  a  physiology  of  the  sense  to  find  the  means  of 
analyzing  the  essential  character  of  the  respective  art;  we  have 
considered  the  arts  of  beauty  themselves  in  order  to  note  in  each 
case  the  ideas  that  are  original  and  peculiar  to  their  nature;  we  have 
followed  for  the  most  part  in  beaten  paths  and  have  been  compelled 
to  show  more  what  ought  to  be  done  than  what  has  been  done."  This 
has  led  to  an  "aesthetics  of  the  feeling  of  beauty,"  "a  philosophy  of 
the  phenomena  of  beauty"  and  "an  aesthetic  science  of  music." 
These  three  roads  are  necessary  to  a  complete  theory  of  the  arts.  In 
psychology  much  has  already  been  accomplished,  but  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  objects  and  "their  beautiful  sensuousness"  without  which 
there  can  be  no  theory  of  all  the  arts,  he  believed  little  had  been  done. 
As  against  the  method  proposed  he  finds  in  looking  over  the  field 
that  poetics  are  based  on  painting  and  theories  of  painting  based  on 
poetry;  he  finds  endless  discussion  of  unity  and  variety,  of  imitation, 
etc.,  etc.  wherein  each  man  has  an  idea  of  the  art  about  which  he 
writes  analogous  to  a  blind  man's  idea  of  color.  Hence  the  impor- 
tance of  his  own  contribution. 

The  remainder  of  this  chapter  is  devoted  to  a  criticism  of  Riedel. 
Riedel  had  accepted  the  Baumgarten  definition  of  poetry,  painting, 
etc.  and  had  expanded  them  so  as  to  explain  more  clearly  their 
meaning  and  to  include  the  distinctions  made  by  Lessing  in  his 
Laokoon.  Herder  attacks  these  definitions  in  considerable  detail 
and  ends  by  restoring  the  brevity  of  Baumgarten's  definition  that 
* 'poetry  is  perfect  sensuous  speech,"  oratio  sensitiva  perfecta;  paint- 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    93 

ing  is  "the  fine  art  which  depicts  surfaces";  sculpture  is  the  "fine  art 
which  forms  bodies";  music  is  "the  fine  art  which  works  through 
harmonious  and  melodious  tones,  or  the  fine  art  of  tone  (Wohllauty'; 
pantomime  is  "the  fine  art  of  giving  living  expression  to  actions." 

In  the  course  of  the  discussion  Herder  takes  up  the  term  sen- 
suous (sinnlich,  sensitiva).  "To  those  who  don't  know  the  meaning  of 
the  word  it  will  be  an  algebraic  formula,  and  they  will  find  Batteux 
more  clear.  Others  who  understand  it  only  in  a  shadowy  way  will 
use  it  incorrectly;  and  there  are  many  such  in  Germany.  The  only 
proper  use  will  be  found  in  those  followers  of  Wolff  who  will  see  the 
idea  in  it  clearly  and  distinctly,  and  only  those  will  see  Baumgar ten's 
meaning  in  its  true  light."  This  leaves  little  doubt  that  in  Herder's 
mind  the  approach  to  aesthetics  from  the  standpoint  of  the  sensuous 
part  of  our  nature  involved  in  art  was  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
theory  of  imitation  as  preached  by  the  followers  of  Batteux  in  Ger- 
many. This  same  position  is  made  clear  in  the  Fragment  on  Baum- 
garten.^^ 

11.  Herder  states  with  regard  to  Riedel's  work  that  "as  an 
abstract  from  the  writings  of  various  authors  his  Theory  may  have 
value,  even  if  the  author  should  fail  to  offer  a  theory  of  his  own." 
But  he  is  unwilling  to  concede  that  he  has  been  successful  in  making 
such  an  abstract  and  blames  him  for  finding  no  better  explanations 
of  the  arts  in  view  of  the  excellent  authorities  he  used.  Herder 
accordingly  reviews  some  of  the  leading  theories  of  his  predecessors 
with  the  apparent  purpose  of  correcting  false  impressions  left  by 
the  Riedel  work.  Incidentally  he  makes  clear  his  own  general 
position.  The  men  thus  taken  up  include  Sulzer,  Mendelssohn, 
Diderot,  Home,  Gerard.  Herder's  views  on  these  men  are  discussed 
later  in  this  study.^^ 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  Herder  had  already  summarized  his  posi- 
tion and  given  a  complete  theory  of  art,  it  is  not  at  first  clear  why 
he  should  do  so  again  at  this  point.  Here  we  find  a  reiteration  of  the 
statement  that  a  theory  of  poetry  and  the  fine  arts  must  take  into 
account  all  the  arts  to  arrive  at  its  main  principles;  that  there  are 
no  principles  without  data  and  phenomena,  and  these  from  the 
individual  arts;  that  words  "von  oben  herab"  are  complex  "Trugi- 

24  XXXII. 

28  See  below,  pp.  97ff. 


94    herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  or  his  time 

deeii";  that  ideas  not  secured  directly  from  the  product  cannot  be 
applied  to  the  products:  by  reason  of  such  views  he  finds  himself  in 
direct  opposition  to  the  defenders  of  the  so-called  pure  aesthetics. 
*^Here  are  my  ideas  and  general  lines  for  the  course  which  one  must 
pursue  through  all  the  arts  to  arrive  at  a  theory  of  beauty;  the  main 
thing  is  the  course,  the  method  itself  (with  direct  reference  to  an 
objection  raised  with  regard  to  Sulzer's  dictionary)." 

He  begins  with  architecture,  since  this  gives-  him  the  clearest 
idea  of  unity  and  variety,  of  proportions,  symmetry  as  well  as  the 
question  of  size  and  the  resulting  admiration.^^  Here  is  an  ideal 
of  visualized  perfection  (anschauliche  Vollkommenheit).  "From 
this  you  take  away  not  only  an  image,  but  you  arrange  your  soul 
accordingly,  in  order  to  give  it  greatness,  strength,  simplicity,  rich- 
ness, order  and  fitness;  in  order  to  build  it  like  a  beautiful  building. "^^ 
Architecture  is  the  "logic"  of  beauty. 

Architecture  has  nothing  to  do  with  imitation;  there  is  no  ideal 
of  beauty,  but  only  a  question  of  perfection  in  lines,  surfaces  and 
bodies,  all  of  which  are  arbitrary.  Only  with  the  statue  do  we  come 
to  the  ideal  of  living  beauty.  Here  is  nature,  real  resemblance,  even 
to  touch,  which  is  the  surest  sense  of  truth.  ''Here  is  beauty,  not 
merely  in  the  imperfect  waves  and  serpentine  lines^^  which  are  only  on 
the  surface,  and  a  constant  source  of  dispute,  but  in  rotundity,  in 
that  which  is  essential  to  touch.  Here  is  original  expression,  the  soul 
speaking  through  the  body,  i.e.,  illusion.  Here  is  insatiable  fullness 
of  thought  in  the  action.  If  one  stand  before  the  statue  of  Lysippus 
with  closed  eyes,  one  may  grasp  the  original  force  of  the  word  feeling. 
You  will  find  that  in  this  world  of  the  sensuous-beautiful,  touch  is 
the  first  true  sense  of  experience." 

Sculpture  has  to  do  with  the  single  figure. ^^  We  now  take  up  what 
is  essentially  the  group.  Variety  on  a  single  ground,  in  a  single 
continuum,  in  a  single  position  of  light  and  shade.  Figures  no  longer 
work  as  individuals,  but  the  impression  is  of  a  whole  composed  of 
figures,  lights,  color  and  space.     They  all  together  make  a  single 

2«  Burke. 

^^  The  relation  of  architecture  to  life  recalls  immediately  Shaftesbury  and  the 
English  school. 
28  Hogarth. 
"  We  recall  how  little  space  was  given  the  single  figure  in  the  First  Waldchen. 


impression.  This  is  painting.  The  further  we  proceed,  the  more 
artificial  art  becomes.  Here  it  is  not  touch,  but  the  practised  eye 
which  gathers  up  the  various  parts  of  the  pictures.  Drawing  has  a 
two-fold  purpose,  namely  to  establish  probability  and  visual  beauty, 
the  latter  a  matter  of  waves,  lines  etc.^^  Color  comes  in  to  make  the 
illusion  perfect.  In  painting,  picturesque  illusion;  in  sculpture 
tactual  illusion:  the  difference  between  sight  and  touch.  In  the 
one  case  the  body  becomes  alive,  in  the  other  the  pictured  surface 
becomes  present  to  us.  Succession  is  here  impossible  where  every- 
thing is  intended  for  a  single  moment  for  the  eye. 

Compared  to  painting  which  is  the  art  of  visualization  music  is 
energy .^1  Music  as  such  is  an  imitation  of  human  passions;  it  arouses 
a  succession  of  inner  sensations  which  are  not  visualized,  but  only 
extremely  "dark."  One  laments,  sighs,  rages,  rejoices  etc.,  with 
music,  all  of  which  are  indefinite  emotions.  As  yet  there  is  not  the 
suggestion  of  a  picture.  The  next  step  would  be  language,  but  the 
difficulty  here  is  that  language  is  at  once  too  definite  and  arbitrary^ 
lacking  strength  on  the  one  hand  (as  compared  to  music)  and  not  so 
closely  connected  with  the  emotion  to  which  art  is  given  expression. 
Therefore  the  dance  is  chosen  as  the  next  art,  since  this  too  is  an 
expression  of  passion,  but  in  the  form  of  attitudes  and  motions  and 
actions.  Music  and  the  dance,  instead  of  supporting  each  other  are 
considered  together  as  a  complete  expression  of  the  soul,  a  totality. 
Such  was  Herder's  conception  of  the  dance  of  the  ancients.  The 
other  elements  of  music,  such  as  the  beautiful  succession  of  tones 
and  harmony,  are  mentioned. 

Poetry.  From  all  the  senses  the  sensation  of  beauty  enters 
the  imagination  and  from  all  the  arts  they  flow  therefore  into 
poetry.  Imagination  is  nothing  without  the  senses,  and  poetry  is 
nothing  without  the  arts.  Each  art  contributes  its  share  to  poetry  so 
that  there  is  justification  for  the  picturesque,  the  plastic  and  the 
musical  element  in  poetry.  This  is  an  important  consideration. 
Although  Herder  warns  decidedly  against  a  confusion  of  the  arts  this 
does  not  apply  to  the  relation  of  poetry  to  the  arts,  whereby  the  main 
distinction  made  by  Lessing  in  the  Laokoon  which  we  have  seen  was 
broken  down  in  part  by  Herder  in  the  First  Waldchen,  seems  here 
to  be  practically  abandoned. 

30  Hogarth. 

"  See  use  of  these  terms  m  the  Laokoon  and  the  First  Waldchen. 


96     herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

/what  Herder  has  here  presented  he  considers  to  be  the  essential 
ii/a  philosophic  theory  of  beauty,  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
practical  phases  of  poetry  and  art.  Such  a  system  he  considers  has 
the  advantage  of  being  open  to  the  young  from  the  very  first,  since  it  is 
a  question  not  of  principles,  but  of  experience,  of  phenomena  which 
lead  finally  up  to  the  conception  of  beauty.  This  he  considered  to  be 
the  Greek  manner  of  education  which  did  not  begin  with  vague  and 
abstract  ideas,  but  with  real  ideas  of  beauty,  which  developed  until 
the  soul  was  filled  with  Greek  feeling  and  Greek  philosophy.  It 
always  remained  experience,  a  training  of  eye,  ear,  hand  and  imagina- 
tion. 

The  second  part  closes  with  a  reference  to  Sulzer's  coming  work 
which  he  feels  will  be  the  last  preparation  for  the  theory  he  desires. 

(c)  Part  Three  of  the  Fourth  Waldchen 
The  third  part  of  the  Waldchen  is  obviously  incomplete.  It 
seems  to  have  been  Herder's  intention  at  this  point  to  enter  into  a 
detailed  criticism  of  Riedel's  interpretation  of  those  properties  or 
qualities  which  have  been  traditionally  associated  with  the  subject 
of  beauty,  such  as  questions  of  unity  and  plurality,  the  sublime, 
imitation  of  nature  etc.  It  was  his  conception  that  a  fallacy  had 
arisen  in  the  past,  and  particularly  in  the  case  of  Riedel,  in  con- 
sidering these  qualities  only  with  respect  to  a  single  art,  and  that  a 
true  study  of  aesthetic  problems  required  that  every  question  of  this 
kind  should  not  only  be  traced  to  its  source,  but  that  this  should  be 
done  with  equal  care  in  every  art  concerned,  if  one  were  to  expect  to 
approach  fundamental  truth.  Throughout  the  discussions  which 
Herder  gives  these  matters,  he  remains  in  the  main  negative  and  there 
is  little  in  the  way  of  good  to  be  gained  in  following  him  through  this 
more  or  less  controversial  argument. 


HERDER'S   RELATION  TO  THE  AESTHETIC 
THEORY  OF  THE  TIME 

From  the  foregoing  survey  of  Herder's  Waldchen  it  is  clear  that 
Herder's  views  on  aesthetics  bear  a  close  relationship  to  previous 
aesthetic  theory.  It  is  possible  in  a  very  satisfactory  degree  to  deter- 
mine through  this  Waldchen  the  extent  of  obligation  which  Herder 
owed  to  his  predecessors  in  building  up  what  was  in  part  an  eclectic 
theory,  but  which  led  finally  into  a  definite  and  original  channel. 

a.  Baumgarten 

Herder's  position  with  regard  to  Baumgarten  seems  fairly  clear. 
We  may  take  it  as  a  straightforward  statement  of  the  case  when  he 
says  ''that  the  Baumgarten  psychology  had  always  seemed  to  him  a 
rich  treasure  chamber  of  the  human  soul  and  that  a  commentary  upon 
it  would  be  a  book  of  the  human  soul,  a  plan  for  education  and  a  gate- 
way to  an  encyclopedia  of  all  the  arts  and  poetry.  ...  If  one  does 
not  take  offense  at  the  'lower  soul-faculties'  he  will  be  found  to  be  the 
first  philosopher  of  our  times  to  carry  a  philosophic  and  often  poetic 
torch  into  these  regions  of  the  soul."  The  fragment  on  Baumgarten 
written  previous  to  this  time,^  reveals  a  similar  attitude.  He  notes  that 
there  are  plenty  of  books  on  a  logic  of  the  "higher  faculties"  but 
"if  what  is  beautiful  and  good  lie  just  in  this  "dark  ground,"  then  let 
a  Montaigne  or  a  Rousseau,  a  Locke  or  a  Home  come  and  explain  the 
Baumgarten  psychology  and  fill  me  full  of  it."^ 

This  position  he  now  contrasts  with  that  of  Batteux  and  Aristotle 
with  regard  to  imitation,  and  upholds  the  Baumgarten  position  in 
that  it  has  to  do  with  a  living  part  of  the  human  soul  rather  than  a 
dry  "Vorwurf."  This  general  view  that  beauty  must  be  treated  as 
sensuous  perfection^  may  be  taken  to  represent  Herder's  standpoint 
so  that  the  contrast  of  this  position  with  the  imitation  theory  as  cham- 
pioned by  Batteux  and  his  followers  in  Germany  is  made  clear.  The 
entire  discussion  of  Herder  ultimately  goes  back  to  this  question  of 
the  senses  and  concerned  itself  with  the  nature  of  what  Baumgarten 

1  See  XXII,  184  ff. 

2  Cf.  Letter  to  Kant  1767,  "Welch  ein  Mann  ware  es  der  iiber  Baumgartens 
reiche  Psychologie  mit  eines  Montaigne's  Seelenerfahrung  redete.  Fourth  Waldchen 
(IV,  15):  such  a  commentary  is  mentioned  also  for  Montaigne,  Klopstock  and 
Leibnitz. 

8 IV,  30. 


called  "sensitiva."  In  the  discussion  of  Riedel's  definitions  of  poetry, 
pointing  etc.,  we  have  already  seen  how  fully  Herder  attempts 
t6  uphold  the  Baumgarten  standpoint  directly. 
/  To  what  extent  Baumgarten  may  be  taken  as  an  immediate  source 
for  Herder's  theory  is  not  so  easy  to  determine  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
there  were  followers  of  Baumgarten  who  developed  his  main  positions, 
and  who  were  careful  not  to  confuse  the  character  of  aesthetics  as  did 
Baumgarten.  In  any  case  the  position  of  Herder  with  relation  to 
Baumgarten  will  need  to  be  kept  in  general  terms,  since  his  own 
criticism  of  him  shows  to  what  extent  he  differed  in  detail.  He  finds 
fault  with  him,  for  example,  for  developing  a  theory  of  aesthetics  from 
a  theory  of  sight  whereby  it  became  a  mere  metaphor*  and  so  he 
thinks  it  would  have  remained  had  Baumgarten  completed  his  work. 
Perhaps  it  is  with  reference  to  this  that  he  holds  Riedel  up  to  ridicule 
for  having  attempted  to  demonstrate  to  Mendelssohn  that  beauty 
must  take  the  form  of  a  sensation,  "as  if  Mendelssohn  were  a  second 
feelingless  Baumgarten."^  That  he  considered  Baumgarten  had 
anticipated  most  of  Home  is  stated  more  than  once,  and  he  tends  to 
classify  him  with  Home  as  proceeding  from  too  little  data.  But  his 
position  with  regard  to  the  senses  and  the  general  philosophic  method 
were  the  moments  which  gave  Baumgarten  his  position  in  Herder's 
thought. 

b.    SULZER 

The  Fourth  Waldchen  would  leave  little  doubt  as  to  the  impor- 
tance which  Herder  attached  to  the  writings  of  Sulzer  in  the  field  of 
aesthetics.  We  know  from  his  correspondence  that  at  the  very  outset 
of  his  work  on  this  Waldchen  he  had  been  reading  some  of  Sulzer's 
essays  and  saw  in  them  a  refutation  of  Riedel's  theory.^  Again  in 
Nantes  at  the  time  of  the  revision  of  the  Waldchen  we  learn  that  he 
had  come  upon  all  the  essays  of  Sulzer  which  had  appeared  in  German. 
It  remains  to  be  seen  what  Herder  found  in  these  treatises  of  Sulzer 
which  directly  appealed  to  him  and  what  he  saw  reason  to  reject. 

In  Part  II,  Chapter  11  of  the  Waldchen,  devoted  to  a  critique  of 
previous  writings  on  aesthetics  which  he  thought  of  particular  value,^ 

*  IV,  53, 

5 IV,  34. 

« To  Nicolai.    Jan.  10,  1769. 

'  Part  II,  chapter  11. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time    99 

Herder  begins  with  Sulzer  and 'devotes  considerably  more  space  to  him 
than  to  any  of  the  other  writers.  It  was  first  of  all  because  Herder  saw 
in  him  the  disciple  of  Wolff  and  Leibnitz,  that  he  was  glad  to  look 
upon  him  as  a  worthy  predecessor  and  contemporary  in  the  field  of 
aesthetics.  The  effort  to  deduce  everything  from  a  "simple  yet  mani- 
fold, ever  active  principle  within  the  human  soul"  was  a  consequence 
of  Sulzer's  position  relative  to  German  philosophy,  and  it  is  this  fact 
which  prompts  Herder  to  speak  of  Sulzer's  first  aesthetic  treatise,  the 
''Theorie  der  Empfindungen"  as  a  "small  monument  in  Germany 
.  .  .  worthy  of  the  hands  of  a  Leibnitz  or  a  Wolff." ^  This  principle 
struck  at  the  very  heart  of  the  Riedel  theory  which  accepted  three 
fundamental  faculties,  rather  than  one,  within  the  human  soul. 
Herder  is  accordingly  moved  in  various  places  in  the  Waldchen  to 
pay  tribute  to  the  work  both  of  Mendelssohn  and  Sulzer  in  proceeding 
from  this  principle.  Thus  he  speaks  of  the  "Simplicity  and  precision 
and  accuracy  with  which  the  followers  of  Leibnitz  have  treated 
psychology  and  in  which  Mendelssohn  and  Sulzer  have  cleared  up 
many  paradoxes  in  the  field  of  dark  and  confused  ideas. "^  Again: 
"Sulzer  has  explained  a  couple  of  paradoxes  in  the  depths  of  the 
mind:  perhaps  with  these  few  remarks  I  may  throw  in  a  few  rays  and 
awaken  another  psychologist  to  bring  in  more  light.  "^°  The  "para- 
dox" alluded  to  is  unquestionably  an  allusion  to  the  title  of  Sulzer's 
essay  "Erklarung  eines  Paradoxes,  etc." 

However  much  Herder  might  be  pleased  to  accept  in  general 
Sulzer's  attitude  towards  this  single  faculty  of  the  soul  one  cannot 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  Sulzer  interpreted  this  in  a  far  more  rational- 
istic manner  than  did  Herder.  As  compared  to  Herder,  Sulzer  still  holds 
to  the  superiority  of  purely  intellectual  ideas,  and  we  have  seen  to 
what  extent  he  attempts  to  subordinate  pleasures  of  the  senses  and 
even  moral  pleasures  to  the  pleasure  of  the  soul  in  securing  a  perfect 
"idea,"  thus  conceiving  beauty  as  a  perfection  in  the  object  which 
makes  possible  a  ready  grasp  of  a  perfect  totality.  Herder  agrees 
with  him  no  farther  than  to  accept  the  general  principle  of  a  single 
faculty  of  the  human  soul  which  may  be  accounted  for  in  Leibnitzian 
philosophy. 

8 IV,  144. 
»W,  12. 
"IV,  33. 


100  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

lierder  was  in  perfect  accord  with  Sulzer  that  taste  with  respect 
tc/art  was  in  reality  a  rational  judgment,  however  spontaneous  this 
Judgment  might  seem.  In  other  words  taste  did  not  require  a  dis- 
tinct faculty  of  the  human  soul.  Both  agreed  further  as  to  the  part 
which  environment  played  in  bringing  about  a  variation  in  taste  both 
with  respect  to  nations  and  individuals,  in  both  instances  the  "Hot- 
tentot and  Greenlander"  is  contrasted  with  civilized  man.  Both 
accepted  the  existence  of  a  standard  of  taste  from  which  the  so-called 
variations  in  taste  are  merely  deviations  from  the  normal.  This 
notion  with  regard  to  taste  was  of  course  very  general  throughout  the 
18th  century,  and  Herder's  previous  studies  had  brought  him  into 
contact  with  this  principle;  it  is  only  Herder's  method  of  argumenta- 
tion at  this  point  that  can  be  called  reminiscent  of  Sulzer. 
Fundamentally  the  men  differed,  Sulzer  upholding  his  one-sided 
rationalistic  position.  Herder  seeing  in  the  variation  of  opportunity 
and  environment  a  source  of  variation  in  sense  experience  and 
sense  training. 

Of  particular  importance  to  Herder  were  those  portions  of 
Sulzer's  "Theorie  der  Empfindungen"  which  had  to  do  with  the 
senses.  From  the  discussion  of  Sulzer's  theories  already  given  it  will 
be  remembered  that  he  divided  pleasures  into  three  classes,  the 
pleasures  of  the  senses  being  considered  to  have  the  least  merit.  He 
then  offers  a  theory  of  sensation  which  presumes  five  gradations  of 
nerves  according  to  their  capability  of  receiving  fine  or  coarse  impres- 
sions, sight  being  considered  to  be  the  finest  sense,  and  touch  being 
placed  at  the  bottom  of  the  list.  In  the  manner  of  a  physicist  he 
seeks  to  indicate  how  the  quantity  of  pleasure  may  be  measured,  the 
nerves  making  possible  a  certain  definite  proportion  between  the 
object  without  to  the  sense  perception  within.  This  is  followed  by  a 
theory  of  music  which  follows  beaten  paths,  but  which,  as  in  the  case 
of  all  sensation,  is  submitted  to  the  original  principle  that  the  soul 
knows  only  one  faculty. 

Herder's  Waldchen  leaves  no  doubt  with  regard  to  his  familiarity 
with  every  step  of  Sulzer's  reasoning  at  this  point.  His  own  theory  of 
pleasure  in  music,  for  example,  is  offered  in  direct  refutation  of 
Sulzer's  position.  Sulzer's  theory  was  a  "physical  and  quantitative" 
explanation,  his  own  was  "qualitative  and  physiological."  There  is 
no  indication  that  he  objected  to  Sulzer's  theory  except  that  it  did 
not  get  beyond  a  certain  point,  namely  to  show  the  manner  in  which 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  lOl 

any  sound  or  noise  affected  the  nerves  of  the  ear;  but  the  reasoning 
as  to  when  pleasure  resulted  in  such  sensations  was  not  accepted  by 
Herder.  Further,  the  fact  that  Sulzer  distinguished  the  senses,  is  of 
course  of  tremendous  importance  in  view  of  Herder's  position  later. 
Here  at  least  was  a  valuable  suggestion  even  though  Herder  must 
object  to  the  position  accorded  the  sense  of  touch.  It  is  unques- 
tionably with  relation  to  Sulzer  that  he  states  that  in  the  past  "we 
have  banished  touch  under  the  name  of  coarse  sense.""  In  the  cri- 
tique in  part  II,  chapter  11  he  sums  up  this  position  briefly  when  he 
states,  that  "if  I  may  except  his  weighing  of  the  sensations,  and  the 
explanation  for  the  differentiation  of  the  senses  etc.,  this  work,  as  far 
as  its  formal  part  is  concerned,  is  even  in  its  smallest  detail  a  meta- 
physical basis  for  a  future  aesthetics.  I  am  using  the  expressions 
'formal  part'  and  'metaphysical  basis'  advisedly,  for  Sulzer's  little 
work  is  not  a  theory  derived  from  objects  of  beauty.  It  indicates 
only  a  metaphysical  position  with  regard  to  the  sensation  of  pleasure; 
it  calculates  the  agreeable  play  of  the  nerves  following  sensation 
more  from  the  standpoint  of  quantity  of  impression,  than  quality 
etc."^^  In  spite  of  Herder's  objection  to  Sulzer's  theory  one  cannot 
fail  to  see  in  Sulzer's  work  at  this  point  an  opportunity  so  necessary 
to  Herder's  type  of  thought  at  this  time,  namely  of  offering  a  theory 
which  he  could  tear  down  in  part  only  to  build  up  along  lines  satis- 
factory to  his  general  viewpoint. 

In  spite  of  differences  of  opinion  in  some  matters,  Herder  fully 
recognized  the  importance  of  Sulzer  in  the  field  of  aesthetics.  In 
fact  he  speaks  of  him  in  one  place  in  the  Waldchen  as  the  "Haupt- 
autor  der  Aesthetik."^^  His  theories  had  already  given  him  high 
standing,  but  the  extensive  project  of  a  "Universal  Theory  of  Poetry 
and  Art"  which  would  take  the  form  of  a  dictionary  or  encyclopedia 
put  him  far  more  into  the  lime  light.  In  proposing  to  offer  in  the 
Fourth  Waldchen  his  own  theories  with  regard  to  what  constitutes  a 
true  theory  of  aesthetics.  Herder  realized  the  exact  position  which 
this  put  him  into  with  regard  to  Sulzer.  Herder  was  unquestionably 
concerned  lest  after  all  the  new  work  might  prove  to  be  a  refutation 
of  his  own  theories.     As  a  matter  of  fact  it  did  not  appear  until 

"  IV,  48. 
«IV,  144f. 
"IV,  43. 


102  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

after  the  completion  of  the  present  Waldchen  and  then  was  in  many 
respects  coolly  received  by  Herder,  since  at  that  time  his  studies  on 
the  Plastik  had  convinced  him  of  the  positive  character  of  his  new 
standpoint,  which  was  of  course  unknown  to  Sulzer. 

The  Fourth  Waldchen  commits  itself  to  a  rather  extended  criti- 
cism of  the  proposed  work  in  so  far  as  it  hopes  to  offer  a  theory  of 
aesthetics  in  the  form  of  an  encyclopedia,  form  and  content  being  to 
Herder  incompatible.  The  source  for  Sulzer's  idea  Herder  finds  in 
Rousseau's  Dictionary  of  Music,  in  Bayle's  dictionary  and  the 
Encyclopedic,  but  "why  a  dictionary?"  Herder's  objections  are 
that  a  dictionary  is  opposed  to  the  notion  of  the  "inner  relationship 
which  exists  between  all  arts."  That  is,  instead  of  making  clear  the 
single  fundamental  principles  running  through  all  art,  this  method 
tends  rather  to  disconnect  and  destroy  what  is  implied  in  the  term 
"universal  theory."  Herder  would  imply  then  that  his  own  work 
here  may  come  too  late  "to  take  the  Penelope  work  out  of  his  hands. "^* 

While  this  work  may  be  misnamed.  Herder  admits  the  great 
value  it  will  have  in  so  far  that  "it  will  furnish  material  for  any  one 
in  the  future  wishing  to  make  a  true  analysis."  He  wishes  to  see  in 
it  exactly  what  Sulzer  proposed,  namely,  as  Herder  quotes  from 
Sulzer,  "an  edifice  of  aesthetics  from  the  standpoint  of  times,  peoples, 
tastes  in  poetry  and  all  the  arts,"  and  Herder  adds  that  "if  an  ency- 
clopedia is  not  of  this  kind  that  all  the  articles  taken  together  form  a 
complete  and  historical  whole  of  art,  then  it  is  imperfect,  deceptive 
and  useless."  His  suggestion  then  is  that  it  stand  as  such  and  no 
further  effort  be  made  to  carry  on  the  original  project  of  constructing 
a  theory  which  would  necessitate  the  "cutting  to  pieces  of  the  whole 
which  he  has  worked  out."  After  some  additional  criticism  to  the 
general  idea  of  the  dictionary  form  he  welcomes  it,  for  it  makes  it 
necessary  for  Riedel  "to  improve  his  work,  or  since  that  cannot  be 
done  without  a  palingenesis,  to  sacrifice  it  to  the  flames." 

c.  Mendelssohn 

There  are  many  reasons  for  the  opinion  that  Mendelssohn  stood 

much  closer   to   Herder's   thought  than  did   Sulzer,   even   though 

Herder  seems  to  accord  to  Sulzer  the  ranking  position  with  regard 

to  aesthetics.     It  has  already  been  suggested  that   Mendelssohn 

"IV,  146. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  103 

rather  than  Sulzer  is  the  logical  successor  of  Baumgarten,  both  by- 
insisting  on  the  sensuous  nature  of  beauty  and  by  going  a  step  further 
and  making  a  distinction  between  beauty  and  perfection.  There 
may  be  considerable  truth  then  in  Herder's  own  admission  in  the 
Fragment  on  Baumgarten^^  that  Mendelssohn  had  made  him  "more 
certain  of  the  real  value  of  Baumgarten."  And  it  is  generally  true 
that  Mendelssohn's  position  with  regard  to  the  sensuous  part  of  our 
nature  is  much  more  acceptable  to  Herder  than  the  rationalism  which 
still  characterized  Sulzer. 

In  the  discussion  of  Mendelssohn  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of 
Part  II,  the  following  works  are  singled  out:  Brief e  liber  die 
Empfindungen,  die  Rhapsodie,  die  Hauptgrundsatze  and  his  contribu- 
tions to  the  Bibliothek  der  schonen  Wissenschaften  and  the 
Literaturbriefe.  Herder  states  that  ''Mendelssohn's  Briefe  (iiber  die 
Empfindungen)  establish  the  distinction  between  beauty  and  perfec- 
tion, between  dark,  clear  and  distinct  pleasures,  between  the  contribu- 
tion of  the  body  (i.e.  the  senses)  and  the  soul  to  our  pleasant  emotions, 
more  closely  than  does  Sulzer,  and  with  insight  and  the  most 
agreeable  enthusiasm  he  supplements  Sulzer  at  the  very  point  where 
Sulzer  takes  for  beauty  what  is  not  beauty.  These  Letters  and  the 
Rhapsodie  which  followed  comprehend  man  in  the  broad  totality 
of  his  mixed  nature  and  offer  with  greater  accuracy  as  far  as  quantity 
(of  sensation?)  is  concerned,  a  very  philosophic  theory  of  mixed  sen- 
sations (or  emotions)." 

This  is  a  fairly  accurate  statement  with  regard  to  Herder's  atti- 
tude towards  Mendelssohn,  which  is  confirmed  in  those  portions  of 
the  Waldchen  which  deal  with  the  general  aspects  of  a  theory  of 
aesthetics,  and  it  indicates  how  carefully  Herder  had  analyzed  the 
works  of  these  two  men  and  had  discovered  the  essential  differences. 
Herder  proceeds  definitely  from  Mendelssohn's  position  that  beauty, 
that  the  very  term  ''aesthetics,"  rests  on  the  predominantly  sensuous 
part  of  our  nature.  What  Mendelssohn  had  to  offer  from  this  stand- 
point was  fully  acceptable  to  him  and  throughout  the  Waldchen  he 
has  nothing  but  praise  for  his  position  in  this  matter.  It  was  only 
the  failure  to  get  beyond  the  consideration  of  the  sensuous  character 
of  beauty  to  a  more  definite  consideration  of  the  objects  of  art  in 
their  relation  to  the  sense  of  pleasure  that  Herder  finds  reason  to 

"XXXII,  189. 


104  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

criticize  him.  Hence  he  states  with  regard  to  the  "Hauptgrundsatze" 
that  while  it  may  serve  as  a  ''general  map  for  one  wishing  to  survey 
the  field,  it  is  too  lacking  in  the  matter  of  data  (immateriell)  and  too 
little  analyzed  or  explained  for  any  one  to  wish  to  travel  by  or  to 
mark  out  the  boundaries  of  art.  To  determine  these  boundaries 
and  to  give  each  art  its  peculiar  and  original  conception,  was  not 
Mendelssohn's  intention;  he  only  showed  or  worked  out  a  main 
principle  which  he  developed  deductively."^^  In  other  words 
Herder's  idea  is  that  it  is  time  to  go  farther  and  employ  the  experi- 
mental method  with  regard  to  art,  taking  into  account  both  the 
object  and  the  subjective  impression. 

Herder  has  continual  praise  for  Mendelssohn  as  well  as  Sulzer  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  they  remained  true  to  the  principle  that  pleasure 
in  art  goes  back  to  a  single  faculty  of  the  soul.  It  is  time  that  we 
determine  Herder's  position  with  regard  to  this  matter.  Sulzer's 
interpretation  has  already  been  noted.^^  Mendelssohn  differed  from 
Sulzer  in  giving  larger  place  to  the  sensuous  nature.  Like  Sulzer 
he  believed  that  the  primary  impulse  of  the  soul  was  towards  per- 
fection. This  Mendelssohn  interpreted  however  not  as  ultimately  a 
logical  perfection  which  was  never  satisfied  with  the  confused  per- 
ception of  the  senses,  but  rather  accepted  the  limitation  of  the  senses 
as  a  fact  of  our  finite  existence  and  the  chief  means  at  our  disposal 
for  satisfying  the  soul's  desire  for  perfection.  Herder  makes  num- 
erous efforts  to  explain  Leibnitz's  theory  of  the  monad  and  the 
pleasure|which  comes  to  it  through  securing  "ideas,"  but  his  real 
contribution  to  this  matter  was  to  take  the  entire  question  out  of 
the  realm  of  the  purely  metaphysical  and  consider  it  a  question  of 
epistemology.  In  other  words  the  reasons  which  had  induced  Locke 
to  take  up  a  theory  of  knowledge  were  just  as  applicable  to  Herder. 
Just  as  the  senses  have  a  certain  definite  function  with  regard  to 
our  ideas  in  general  so  why  not  to  our  ideas  in  the  realm  of  art  was 
Herder's  proposition.  In  other  words  the  soul  knows  only  one  active 
principle  acting  on  experience.  Hence  it  happens  that  while  Herder 
in  general  terms  can  take  sides  with  Sulzer  and  Mendelssohn,  because 
they  in  distinction  from  Riedel,  etc.  upheld  a  single  principle  of  the 
soul,  it  must  be  said  that  the  moment  he  took  up  the  theory  of  the 
senses  on  the  basis  of  Lockian  philosophy  to  found  aesthetic  theory, 

18 IV,  148. 

"  Above,  p.  99. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  105 

that  moment  he  took  a  step  decidedly  in  advance  of  his  predecessors. 
That  he  is  outdistancing  Mendelssohn  at  this  point  is  clear  from  the 
statement  he  makes  with  regard  to  Mendelssohn  just  before  he 
quotes  Diderot's  Letter  on  the  Blind,  to  the  effect  that  he  had  not 
taken  into  account  the  fact  that  the  sense  of  sight  does  not  give  us 
our  ideas  of  forms  and  bodies.  And  yet  it  does  not  follow  that 
Herder  changed  his  views  with  regard  to  the  general  principle  which 
he  thought  at  the  basis  of  German  philosophy  as  can  be  seen  from  a 
letter  written  to  Mendelssohn  from  Paris^^  after  completing  the 
Waldchen.  "According  to  your  elucidations^^  our  ideas  with  regard 
to  the  nature  of  the  human  soul  are  very  similar.  .  .  .  Pardon  me 
if  I  don't  always  speak  transcendentally  and  in  the  language  of 
'system,'  and  if  I  don't  express  myself  accurately;  try  to  put  my 
thoughts  in  your  own  words;  in  the  end  we  must  agree.  Cultivation 
of  the  soul  powers  leads  to  the  development  of  abilities;  these  abili- 
ties are  realities,  and  where  proportionately  cultivated  become  per- 
fections." In  other  words  Leibnitz  and  Shaftesbury.  Then  occurs 
this  significant  statement,  which  indicates  how  Herder's  theory  of 
art  built  on  the  study  of  the  sense  activity  fits  into  this  general 
scheme.  ''This  seems  to  me  first  of  all  certain;  all  our  cultivation, 
learning,  Fertigwerden,  is  only  a  development  of  powers  that  lie  in  us, 
which  are  brought  complete  into  this  world,  which  make  up  the 
essential  of  the  soul.  As  impossible  as  it  is  for  us  to  give  ourselves 
another  sense,  so  little  can  we  add  powers,  realities,  perfections.  It 
is  only  the  modification  of  the  formal  part  of  our  perceptions  that 
we  may  give  ourselves;  the  dark  idea  becomes  clear,  the  clear  be- 
comes distinct,  the  sensuous-imperfect  becomes  the  sensuous- 
perfect." 

In  the  problem  which  Lessing  took  up  in  the  Laokoon  Herder 
stood  much  closer  to  Mendelssohn  than  he  did  to  Lessing.  As 
against  Lessing's  position  with  regard  to  words  as  the  natural  signs 
of  poetry  Herder  could  have  found  in  Mendelssohn  plenty  of  support 
for  the  view  that  words  were  not  natural,  but  were  arbitrary  signs. 
Mendelssohn's  theory  of  pleasure  led  naturally  to  a  consideration  of 
emotional  content  rather  than  beauty  of  form,  so  that  Herder's 
position  was  consistent  with  that  of  Mendelssohn  when  he  sought 
in  the  First  Waldchen  to  make  clear  the  value  of  action  or  the  ''poeti- 
cs Dec.  1,  1769. 
"  Mendelssohn's  letter  to  Herder  is  lost. 


106  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

cal"  element  not  merely  in  poetry  but  in  all  the  arts.  The  Fourth 
Waldchen  approached  the  subject  from  a  totally  different  standpoint 
so  that  except  for  Herder's  own  statements  with  regard  to  his  atti- 
tude towards  Mendelssohn's  theories  there  is  no  way  of  knowing 
how  closely  Herder  accepted  Mendelssohn's  theory  of  emotions. 
In  fact  the  interpretation  which  he  puts  on  sculpture  shows  a  reaction 
in  favor  of  Winckelmann  in  so  far  as  he  is  able  to  see  the  value  now 
of  a  single  figure  in  sculpture. 

Mendelssohn's  importance  to  Herder's  aesthetic  theories  lies  in  the 
fact  that  he  made  perfectly  clear  to  Herder  the  role  of  the  senses  with 
respect  to  art.  ''Have  men  naturally  a  leaning  towards  the  perception 
of  what  is  beautiful?  In  the  widest  sense,  yes,  because  they  are  all 
capable  of  sensuous  ideas.  We  are  at  the  same  time  animal  spirits; 
our  sensuous  powers,  if  I  may  say  so,  seem  to  occupy  a  larger  space 
in  our  soul  than  the  few  'upper'  powers;  they  develop  earlier,  they 
are  more  effective;  they  belong  more  in  the  visible  part  of  our  exis- 
tence than  the  others;  since  we  do  not  come  to  full  fruition  here,  they 
are  the  flower  of  our  perfection.  The  whole  background  of  our  soul 
is  made  up  of  these  'dark'  ideas,  ...  they  become  the  motive 
forces  of  our  life,  they  are  the  greatest  contribution  to  our  happiness 
and  unhappiness."2o  This  was  all  made  clear  in  Mendelssohn.  But 
Mendelssohn  did  not  go  farther  with  the  consideration  of  the  senses 
than  to  note  the  distinction  between  sight  and  hearing,  ideas  which 
were  to  be  found  in  the  distinction  of  painting  and  music  in  the 
Laokoon  but  which  did  not  require  an  analysis  of  these  senses. 
Herder's  theory  in  the  Waldchen  has  this  general  theory  only  in  the 
background,  his  own  position  being  not  in  contradiction  to,  but  in 
advance  of  what  he  found  thus  far.  The  explanation  of  art  by  a 
sixth  sense,  Herder  dismisses^^  for  the  same  reasons  which  Mendels- 
sohn once  suggested,  namely  that  it  cuts  off  at  once  any  further 
philosophy  on  the  subject. 

d.  Winckelmann 
Winckelmann's  idealistic  attitude  towards  Greek  sculpture  occu- 
pies a  definite  place  in  Herder's  theory,  although  perhaps  differently 
interpreted.     In  the  First  Waldchen  Herder  had  in  general  cham- 
pioned Winckelmann  where  he  was  opposed  by  Lessing.     While 

20 IV,  28. 

21  IV. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  107 

accepting  the  position,  as  did  both  Lessing  and  Winckelmann,  that 
beauty  of  form  was  an  essential  law  of  sculpture,  he  refused  to  go  to 
the  length  Lessing  did  and  fail  to  accord  positive  rights  to  emotional 
content.  He  therefore  openly  emphasizes  "expression"  in  which 
Lessing  saw  the  source  for  the  vagaries  of  modern  art. 

That  Herder  had  a  clear  conception  of  the  character  of  Winckel- 
mann's  idealism  is  seen  in  the  following  passage  from  the  1st  Wald- 
chen.22  ''Like  to  that  Greek  artist  to  whom  beauty  itself  (but  of 
course  beauty  of  art)  had  appeared,  enchanted  he  sought  its  form 
painted  with  fire  in  his  mind,  burning  in  his  eye,  stirring  in  his  heart; 
— this  figure  of  beauty,  the  image  of  love,  he  sought  everywhere,  even 
in  reflected  splendor ;  he  fancied  he  saw  it,  as  Kleist's  Amynte  did  his 
beloved  Lalage,  even  in  footprints,  in  the  reflection  of  the  water,  the 
breath  of  the  zephyr,  which  to  be  sure  might  come  from  another 
Lalage — the  beauty  of  the  poet.  So  in  the  feeling  of  this  graphic 
rather  than  poetic  beauty,  he  stood  before  Virgil's  Laokoon,  as  before 
the  Laokoon  of  Polydorus  (Agesander)  and  in  this  manner  he  must 
be  read,  for  this  is  the  limitation  of  human  nature,  that  we  may  see 
only  one  thing  at  one  time. — This  one  thing  in  Winckelmann  was 
art." 

Again  within  the  First  Waldchen  Herder  comes  back  to  the  posi- 
tion of  Winckelmann  with  regard  to  ideal  beauty  as  against  the  idea 
of  Mendelssohn.  By  the  fact  that  plastic  art  is  a  "work"  and  may 
therefore  present  only  a  single  moment,  the  work  must  be  of  such  a 
nature  that  the  "soul  may  forget  itself  in  viewing  it,  may  have  a 
sense  of  repose  and  lose  the  measure  of  time."  "In  bodies  this 
eternal  moment  iS  perfect  beauty;  and  in  so  far  as  the  soul  may  work 
through  bodies,  it  is  Greek  repose  (Ruhe).  This  lies  between  a  dead 
inactivity  and  a  wrought  up  exaggerated  effect;  the  imagination  can 
soar  to  either  side,  and  finds  the  most  prolonged  enjoyment  in  this 
moment.  Dead  inactivity  cuts  off  the  thread  of  thought  with  a 
single  stroke;  the  figure  is  dead,  who  will  awaken  it?  On  the  other 
side  the  exaggeration  of  expression  cuts  off  the  flight  of  fancy;  who 
can  conceive  anything  higher  than  the  highest?  But  the  blessed 
repose  of  Greek  expression  rocks  the  soul  to  both  sides,  and  in  this 
sight  we  imagine  the  quiet  sea  (a  frequent  figure  in  Winckelmann) 
from  which  the  gentle  wave  of  motion  and  passion  rises.    What  if  the 

22in,  10. 


108  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  oe  his  time 

wave  should  become  higher?  What  if  from  this  gentle  zephyr  there 
should  arise  a  destructive  storm  of  passion?  How  the  waves  would 
tower  and  expression  swell  up?  What  a  broad  field  for  thought  lies 
in  the  gentle  repose  of  Greek  expression."  This  is  clearly  an  attempt 
to  express  the  Winckelmann  point  of  view,  but  with  the  obvious 
distinction  that  Herder  stresses  much  more  the  latent  passion,  than 
the  Greek  conception  of  moderation  and  strength  of  character  as 
Winckelmann  saw  it. 

The  First  Waldchen  clearly  showed  that  in  his  demand  for  a 
larger  expression  of  emotion.  Herder  had  favored  group  sculpture  to 
the  single  figure.  The  interesting  fact  is  that  the  Fourth  Waldchen 
offers  a  theory  which  looks  upon  the  single  figure  as  the  true  field  of 
sculpture  and  permits  a  more  accurate  acceptation  of  Winckelmann's 
view.  He  states  with  regard  to  "beautiful  form"  (in  which  idea 
he  here  associates  the  name  of  Webb  with  that  of  Winckelmann): 
"This  is  the  explanation  for  the  greater  enthusiasm  of  the  lovers  of 
sculpture  than  those  of  painting.  When  the  connoisseur  of  painting 
describes  his  painting,  he  has  surfaces  before  him;  he  depicts 
the  figures  in  their  situation,  their  presence;  he  describes  what  he  sees 
before  him.  But  let  the  lover  of  Apollo  Belvedere  and  the  torso  and 
Niobe  describe  what  is  before  him.  He  does  not  have  surfaces,  it  is 
for  him  to  describe  the  body  which  he  feels,  or  rather  not  describe  but 
make  it  felt.  Then  his  touch-imagination  steps  into  the  place  of  the 
colder  and  analytical  eye ;  then  he  feels  Hercules  in  his  whole  body  and 
this  body  in  all  its  deeds.  In  the  mighty  outlines  of  his  body  he  feels 
the  strength  of  the  conqueror  of  giants,  in  the  gentle  outlines  the  agile 
combatant  of  Achelous;  he  feels  the  great  and  splendid  breast  which 
crushed  Geryon.  The  touch-imagination  has  here  no  measure  or 
limitations. "23  xhe  wise  simplicity  of  the  ancients,  and  the 
blessed  repose,  and  the  exact  contour  and  the  clinging  drapery 
which  the  Greeks  give  their  statues,  is  explained  obviously 
from  this  sense  of  touch  which  feels  as  if  it  were  in  the  dark 
in  order  not  to  be  distracted  by  sight  and  gives  itself  over 
to  the  outpourings  of  imagination.  Here  there  can  be  nothing 
ugly,  nothing  distorted  and  drawn  in  the  main  expression 
...  for  only  in  the  actual  perfection  which  a  line  this  way  or  that 
shows,  lies  the  sensual  pleasure  of  art."^^    In  these  passages  we  are 

23 IV,  66  f . 

24 IV,  72.    See  also  IV,  157. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  109 

able  to  see  how  Herder's  theory  of  sculpture,  built  up  on  Hogarth's 
theory  of  the  line,  which  Winckelmann  also  accepted,  is  brought  into 
harmony  with  Winckelmann's  ideal  conception  of  sculpture.^^ 

In  a  paragraph  devoted  in  part  to  a  discussion  of  Winckelmann 
Herder  has  this  to  say:  *'If,  as  Winckelmann  says,  beauty  has  not 
since  Plato's  time  been  written  about  with  feeling  (Empfindung)  then 
Winckelmann's  own  works  have  been  composed  not  after  a  fleeting 
survey,  but  in  living  touch  (Handgefiihl)  with  sculptural  beauty. 
His  first  work  on  Imitation  was  formed  with  the  richest  unction  and  in 
the  awakening  glow  of  sensation  (Empfindung).  This  work  and  his 
"Empfindung  des  Schonen  selbst"  and  the  esssential  part  of  his 
history  of  art,  are  a  mine  full  of  veins  of  gold  for  the  treasure  of 
aesthetics.  If  he  speaks  in  too  general  terms,  one  need  only  limit 
his  judgment  to  his  particular  art  and  point  of  view,  which  was 
pre-eminently  that  of  sculpture. "^^ 

e.  Shaftesbury 
Herder  accepted  Shaftesbury's  standpoint  relative  to  the  good, 
the  beautiful  and  the  true  as  it  was  understood  in  Germany.  The 
passage  quoted  on  page  94  relative  to  architecture  indicates  clearly 
this  position  and  is  an  additional  evidence  of  the  extent  to  which 
Shaftesbury's  views  were  in  accord  with  the  classical  conception  of 
art  which  obtained  in  Germany  throughout  the  18th  Century. 

f.  Home 
Herder's  references  to  Home  are  of  such  a  nature  that  one  may 
conclude  that  Herder  shared  the  opinion  of  the  time  with  regard  to 
the  importance  of  Home  in  the  field  of  aesthetics.  What  individual 
ideas  he  accepted  from  Home,  if  any,  it  is  difficult  to  determine. 
His  discussion  of  sight  indicates  a  familiarity  with  Home's  view,  a 
fact  that  is  confirmed  by  his  note  on  page  46,  although  a  similar  dis- 
cussion is  found  elsewhere,  in  Sulzer  for  example.  He  seems  at  one 
point  to  dismiss  Home  with  the  statement  that  ''many  of  the  obser- 
vations made  by  Home  he  had  known  a  long  time  and  in  a  more  exact 
language  in  Baumgarten,"^^  a  statement  which  would  need  qualifica- 

26  See  above. 
2«  IV,  89. 
27 IV,  16. 


110  HERBERTS  RELATION  TO  THE  AESTHETIC  THEORY  OF  HIS  TIME 

tion.  Home's  possible  contribution  to  Herder's  thought  must  in  the 
end  be  looked  for  rather  in  the  general  method  and  in  his  understand- 
ing of  the  term  aesthetics  than  in  individual  theories,  and  in  view  of 
Herder's  original  purpose  of  giving  a  general  theory  and  method  of 
aesthetics,  this  is  very  important. 

Herder  could  find  his  way  clear  as  a  rule  to  praise  Home  for  his 
general  manner  in  approaching  the  subject  of  aesthetics.  "Home 
analyzed  works  of  art,  viz.,  Shakespeare  and  Ossian;  and  he  drew 
deductions  from  ideas  thus  secured  just  as  did  Baumgarten,"^^  and  it  is 
just  this  "strict  analysis"  which  Herder  so  highly  praised.  Likewise 
in  showing  that  aesthetics  was  a  science  and  not  the  pleasure  in  art 
itself,  he  may  well  have  had  Home  for  a  model,  his  reasoning  being 
identical  except  that  Home  attempts  to  show  the  moral  value  of  such 
exercise.  But  while  Herder  finds  reasons  in  general  for  praising 
Home,  he  offers  fairly  accurate  criticism  from  his  standpoint  in  the 
critique  in  Part  II,  Chapter  11.  In  the  first  place  he  finds  that  his 
discussionof  novelty,  beauty,  sublime,  etc.,  are  treated  without  being 
brought  into  any  vital  relation  with  a  fundamental  idea  or  system; 
in  other  words  these  main  ideas  seem  to  him  to  be  detached.  His 
book  may  be  used  only  as  a  compilation  of  principles  or  observations, 
but  certainly  not  as  a  theory  of  art.  In  the  second  place  he  has  taken 
into  account  human  nature  and  poetry,  but  has  omitted  the  fine  arts, 
so  that  the  criticism  which  may  be  applied  to  Baumgarten  or  Meier  is 
applicable  to  him,  namely  a  lack  of  complete  data,  and  this  he  con- 
siders unfortunate  since  poetry  in  his  estimation  has  the  arts  for  its 
very  foundation.  Home  has,  he  thinks,  confined  his  attention  more 
to  the  emotional  side  of  human  nature  than  to  beauty  in  objects,  and 
as  far  as  it  goes  is  the  most  valuable  contribution  to  the  subjective 
side  of  aesthetics.  Finally  he  concludes  that  after  all  Home  does  not 
proceed  experimentally,  inductively,  but  begins  with  passions  and 
emotions  and  then  seeks  for  examples  to  support  them,  and  Herder 
finds  great  offense  in  detaching  excerpts  from  the  body  of  a  work  of 
poetic  art  whereby  the  original  spirit  must  be  missing.  But  whether 
the  examples  are  effective  or  not  Herder  sees  no  reason  for  taking 
exception  to  his  conclusions  on  the  passions. 

We  are  led  to  conclude  that  there  is  little  indication  that  Herder 
was  thoroughly  familiar  with  Home's  work  further  than  to  grasp  his 

MIV,21. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  111 

general  position  and  manner.    As  a  matter  of  fact  Herder  stood  much 
farther  from  Home  than  these  general  criticisms  would  indicate. 

g.  Burke 
Burke,  on  the  other  hand,  stood  much  closer  to  Herder  than 
Home.  He  had  read  Burke^®  just  before  taking  up  his  Waldchen  and 
had  immediately  seen  the  relation  in  which  his  essay  stood  to  such 
theory  as  proposed  by  Riedel.  He  must  however  have  been  prepared 
for  Burke's  viewpoint  through  Mendelssohn,  who,  we  have  shown, 
was  indebted  to  him  for  important  views  on  art,  particularly  with 
regard  to  the  distinctions  of  beauty  and  truth,  and  with  regard  to 
the  passions  in  both  of  which  Herder  concurred.  There  is  however  a 
distinct  portion  of  the  Waldchen  which  is  clearly  a  Burke  product, 
namely  the  theory  of  music.  And  Herder  leaves  us  little  doubt,  had 
the  argument  itself  been  not  convincing,  by  acknowledging  the  fact. 
"We  have  a  British  empirical  philosopher,  who  has  followed  these  two 
feelings  (beauty  and  sublimity)  deep  into  our  nature  and  at  the  same 
time  into  the  very  fibres  which  immediately  surround  the  soul,  and 
has  everywhere  reduced  the  sublime  to  a  feeling  of  tension  and 
beauty  to  a  feeling  of  relaxation  of  the  nerves — it  is  Burke,  the  author 
of  the  philosophic  Inquiry  of  Beauty  and  the  Sublime,  whom  Mendels- 
sohn made  known  to  us  and  whom  Lessing  has  promised  us  so  long. 
He  may  have  the  pairing  of  his  two  feelings  with  the  impulses  of  sel- 
fish and  social  affections:  he  may  have  his  qualitates  occultas  of  ideas 
which  no  longer  can  be  justified  in  an  intellectual  point  of  view: 
he  may  have  all  that  is  system  (hypothetical  theory) ;  the  real  obser- 
vations in  Burke  are  genuine  discoveries. "^°  He  continues  the  dis- 
cussion of  Burke  at  some  length,  expressing  regret  that  he  had  not 
carried  the  investigation  farther  with  respect  to  the  relation  of  the 
nerves  to  these  finer  feelings,  and  more  particularly  because  he  did 
not  get  beyond  general  emotions  to  an  examination  of  the  relations 
of  the  various  arts  to  our  sensitive  nature.  In  other  words  Herder 
leads  one  to  believe  that  this  will  be  his  own  field,  to  continue  Burke 
where  he  left  off,  taking  into  account  his  own  distinction  of  the 
arts  on  the  basis  of  the  senses. 

29  See  below,  p.  122. 

30 IV,  104  ff.    Cf.  IV,  173  ff. 


112  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

h.  Hogarth 
Hogarth's  theory  of  the  line  had  been  accepted  generally  in  Ger- 
many. It  is  hardly  necessary  to  repeat  here  the  essential  position 
which  this  theory  held  in  Herder's  theory  of  touch  with  respect  to 
sculpture.  It  is  such  an  important  factor  that  one  wonders  whether 
Herder  would  have  found  his  way  clear  to  advance  this  theory  except 
with  the  aid  of  this  principle.  For  what  he  does  at  this  point  is  to 
take  over  the  serpentine  or  elliptical  line  and  make  the  immediate 
impression  of  beauty  in  sculpture  to  rest  on  the  effect  this  has  on 
touch.  As  to  the  use  of  this  principle  by  analogy,  with  respect  to 
the  theory  of  sound  he  had  Sulzer  for  example  as  a  model. 

i.  Rousseau 

The  immediate  effect  of  Rousseau  on  Herder's  thought  is  not 
indicated  in  the  Fourth  Waldchen,  further  than  that  he  cites  Rousseau 
in  considering  the  effect  which  would  result  were  education  to  proceed 
from  the  principle  that  many  of  our  ideas  originate  with  touch,  a 
theory  which  he  developed  in  Emile.^''^  We  know  from  the  correspon- 
dence that  Herder  at  this  time  thinks  he  is  no  longer  a  follower  of  Rous- 
seau, but  this  had  reference  no  doubt  to  certain  theories.  Generally 
speaking  one  cannot  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  Herder  owes  much  to 
both  Rousseau  and  Hamann  for  the  attitude  toward  what  may  be 
called  feeling,  as  opposed  to  a  rational  point  of  view,  and  yet  from 
the  standpoint  of  specific  theory  Rousseau  seemed  to  have  con- 
tributed little,  although  one  may  not  under-estimate  the  value  of 
this  contribution  which  may  have  emboldened  Herder  to  suggest  an 
aesthetic  education  which  would  proceed  not  from  the  reason,  but  the 
senses. ^^^ 

j.  Diderot 

The  study  of  the  relation  of  Diderot  to  Herder's  thought  has 
often  been  suggested,  but  so  far  has  not  been  worked  out  in  detail. 
Haym,  for  example,^^  speaks  of  a  general  kinship  between  the  two 
men,  but  confines  himself  to  generalities  in  this  connection.  Rosen- 
kranz^2  states:  "I  marvel  that  instead  of  the  parallel  between  Diderot 
and  Lessing  which  has  become  monotonous,  one  does  not  compare 

30a  IV,  52.  ♦ 

30b  IV,  167  ff. 

31 1,  348. 

32  Diderot  II,  398. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  113 

the  former  with  Herder,  with  whom  he  offers  many  points  of  contact 
by  reason  of  his  many  sided  receptivity,  his  declamatory  pathos  and 
his  enthusiasm  for  everything  that  is  concerned  with  humanity," 
all  of  which  is  in  general  terms.  SiegeP^  likewise  points  this  out.  In 
view  of  this  very  general  feeling  that  such  an  investigation  should  be 
undertaken,  it  may  be  that  the  present  work  may  perform  some  ser- 
vice in  pointing  out  what  seems  to  be  a  very  definite  point  of  relation- 
ship between  these  two  men. 

References  to  Diderot  occur  in  the  earlier  works  of  Herder.  They 
had  to  do  in  the  main  with  Diderot's  theory  of  pantomime  both  as 
regards  the  origin  of  language,  inversions,  etc.,  and  in  regard  to  stage 
representation,  thus  showing  a  familiarity  with  both  the  Lettre  sur 
les  Sourds  et  Muets  and  the  essays  on  the  drama.  He  was  acquainted 
further  with  Diderot's  general  position  with  regard  to  the  relation  of 
what  we  know  as  milieu  to  taste  and  poetic  expression.  Herder's 
essay  on  the  Ode  follows  very  closely  a  development  of  thought  found 
in  Diderot.  There  is  little  question  of  the  high  respect  with  which 
Herder  held  the  French  encyclopedist  during  these  years,  so  that  he 
had  no  prejudice  of  mind  to  overcome  in  order  to  accept  the  sugges- 
tion for  those  ideas  which  come  to  light  for  the  first  time  in  the  Fourth 
Waldchen  and  which  from  then  on  to  the  end  of  his  life  form  an  inte- 
gral part  of  his  thought. 

The  first  of  the  important  references  to  Diderot  in  the  Fourth 
Waldchen  is  an  extended  translation  taken  from  the  "Essai  sur  la 
Poesie  Dramatique."^*  His  purpose  in  using  the  passage  was  to 
indicate  a  kind  of  milieu  which  would  lead  to  a  variation  of  taste, 
whereas  Diderot  had  intended  to  illustrate  what  he  considered  to  be 
a  type  of  moeurs  which  was  naturally  poetic.  The  use,  however, 
which  Herder  made  of  the  reference  was  in  no  way  contrary  to 
Diderot's  point  of  view,  which  was  held  rather  generally  throughout 
the  18th  Century,  for  example  in  Dubos,  Shaftesbury,  etc. 

In  another  place^^  Herder  takes  up  the  discussion  of  Diderot's 
article  *'Beau."  This  had  been  written  by  Diderot  for  the  Encyclo- 
pHie  and  was  circulated  in  advance  along  with  a  copy  of  the  Discours 
Preliminaire  to  advertise  the  coming  work.     Here  he  states  that 

^  Herder  als  Philosoph.,  p.  34. 
84 IV,  39,  Diderot  VII,  370. 
« IV,  149. 


114  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

Diderot's  philosophical  thoughts  on  the  "formation  of  the  conception 
of  beauty  in  us,  the  point  of  view  which  dififerent  languages  have 
toward  this  conception,  and  its  variations,  everywhere  betray  the 
keen  philosopher,  which  makes  him  so  distinct  in  his  nation.  The 
entire  article  would  be  worthy  of  translation  and  interpretation, 
especially  with  reference  to  the  position  of  Crousaz,  Andre  and 
Hutcheson  towards  beauty."  While  at  work  on  the  Fourth  Wald- 
chen  Herder  had  referred  to  this  same  article  in  a  letter  to  Hamann.^^ 
"I  have  read  Diderot's  article  "Beau"  and  except  for  some  of  my 
favorite  theories  as  to  how  beauty  develops  in  us  (probably  in  refer- 
ence to  the  fact  that  our  taste  for  beauty  is  in  reality  an  acquired 
readiness  of  judgment)  and  a  good  critique  of  what  has  been  written 
on  beauty  before  this  time,  I  found  nothing  that  may  be  called  new 
theory."  Reference  is  further  made  within  the  Waldchen  to  Diderot's 
theory  of  dramatic  picture  or  tableau  with  respect  to  stage  represen- 
tation as  well  as  his  theory  of  dramatic  expression.^^  In  another 
passage  he  mentions  his  theory  of  music  along  with  that  of  Euler, 
Dalembert,  etc. 

But  the  real  importance  of  Diderot  to  the  development  of 
thought  in  the  Waldchen  is  seen  in  the  extensive  references  to  the 
Letter  on  the  Blind,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  following.  "The 
sense  of  sight  is  the  most  artificial  and  the  most  philosophical  of  the 
senses;  it  is  attained,  as  those  who  have  been  blind  tell  us,  only  with 
the  greatest  effort  and  practice. "^^  A  theory  of  sight  "would  teach 
us  to  see  beauty  .  .  .  and  not  to  speak  as  the  blind  do  of  color  and 
the  mirror. "^^  "The  blind  tell  us  that  many  unknown  nuances  are 
distinguishable  to  the  hearing  which  now  only  belong  to  sight. "^^  To 
show  us  that  touch  is  the  sense  which  gives  us  impressions  of 
bodies,  and  incidentally  to  make  clear  that  his  theory  is  in  advance  of 
that  of  Mendelssohn  for  this  reason,  he  cites  Diderot's  "Letter  on  the 
Blind"  and  gives  as  complete  an  outline  as  possible  without  including 
Diderot's  metaphysical  deductions  and  the  conclusions  which  had 
no  direct  bearing  on  Herder's  purpose.*^    Part  II,  chapter  3,  taken  up 

38  Middle  March  1769. 
"  IV,  18. 
88 IV,  45. 

"rv,47. 

« IV,  49  ff. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  115 

with  a  development  of  the  theory  that  touch  is  the  sense  appealed  to 
in  sculpture,  is  of  course  at  the  very  heart  of  his  theory  and  while  no 
immediate  reference  may  be  found  to  Diderot  on  the  blind,  the  source 
for  this  general  position  is  clear.  In  the  discussion  of  painting  which 
follows  he  states  "The  blind  one  who  regained  his  sight  saw  all  the 
objects  like  a  large  colored  picture  surface  lying  immediately  upon 
his  eye. "^2  The  entire  theory  of  the  colossal  in  art  is  based  on  the 
experience  of  the  blind  who  immediately  after  sight  was  restored 
saw  everything  as  a  "gigantic  form  in  the  eye"  and  he  mentions  the  case 
of'Chesselden  "who  did  not  through  sight  find  that  in  the  faces  of  his 
friends  which  he  had  formerly  found  through  touch.  "^^  In  the  theory 
of  music,  he  states  that  "the  blind  have  much  deeper  feeling  for  the 
first  moments  of  agreeable  tone  than  those  who  see,  whose  inner  sense 
of  tone  feeling  is  diverted  by  a  thousand  external  distracting  surface 
images. "^^  And  finally  the  reference  to  Riedel  as  the  "man  who  has 
a  conception  of  each  art  about  which  he  writes  comparable  to  the 
blind  man's  conception  of  color. "^^ 

Diderot's  Letter  on  the  Blind  which  was  the  apparent  source  for 
the  idea  which  Herder  is  seen  to  apply  thus  zealously  was  not  written 
with  a  view  to  furnishing  a  basis  for  aesthetic  theory.  It  had  been 
written  in  part  to  take  up  the  discussion  of  the  problem  which  had 
originally  been  raised  by  Molineux  in  a  letter  to  Locke  as  to  whether 
a  man  whose  sight  was  restored  would  be  able  to  distinguish  a  cube 
from  a  sphere.  This  problem  was  discussed  among  others  by  Berkeley 
and  by  Robert  Smith,  whose  "Complete  System  of  Opticks"  was 
well  known  in  his  day,  both  of  whom  take  up  the  case  of  a  blind 
lad  whose  sight  was  restored  by  Dr.  Chesselden  and  reported  in  the 
Philosophical  Transactions,  as  a  support  for  their  particular  view- 
points. The  discussion  was  taken  up  in  France  by  Voltaire,  Condil- 
lac,  Bufifon  and  Diderot  and  also  reported  in  the  article  "Aveugle'* 
in  the  Encyclopedic,  in  every  instance  the  case  of  Chesselden  being 
used  as  a  basis  for  argument.  Diderot's  Letter  attaches  itself  nor- 
mally to  this  discussion,  but  to  the  case  of  Chesselden  he  adds  other 
cases  of  men  born  blind.    In  addition  to  taking  up  the  question  of 

^IV,  74. 
«IV,  82,  also85. 
« IV,  106. 
« IV,  128. 


116  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

the  sphere  and  the  cube  Diderot  interested  himself  in  certain  meta- 
physical considerations  with  respect  to  the  existence  of  God,  the 
atheistical  tendency  of  which  was  in  part  responsible  for  his  imprison- 
ment. 

The  history  of  this  discussion  is  interesting  from  the  fact  that  of 
all  the  writers  mentioned  who  have  taken  up  the  question  of  the 
blind,  Diderot  was  the  only  one  to  hint  at  the  possibilities  of  its 
application  to  aesthetics,  which  he  however  does  only  casually.  He 
raises  the  question  for  example  as  to  whether  a  blind  man  Will  have 
an  idea  of  beauty  and  what  his  ideas  of  symmetry  and  order  really 
are.  He  states  further  that  touch  gives  the  idea  of  relief^^  and  that 
the  blind  have  no  sense  of  painting."*^  It  is  in  fact  Herder  who  takes 
the  final  step  in  this  story  of  making  this  case  of  the  blind  the  real 
basis  for  an  aesthetic  theory. 

During  the  period  covered  by  the  composition  of  the  Fourth 
Waldchen  there  is  no  indication  in  the  correspondence  nor  in  the 
"Journal"  of  the  value  of  Diderot's  Letter  to  Herder.  Except  for  the 
reading  of  the  article  Beau*^  and  two  references  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
found  in  Nantes  Diderot's  Eloge  de  Richardson,^^  for  which  he  two 
years  before  expressed  enthusiasm  particularly  for  the  style,^^  the 
only  indication  we  have  that  Herder  may  have  come  into  contact 
with  the  writings  of  Diderot  are  in  connection  with  the  reading  of  the 
Encyclopedic. 

In  contrast  to  the  Nantes  period  the  portions  of  the  Journal 
written  in  Paris  as  well  as  the  correspondence  from  there  have  much 
to  say  with  respect  to  Diderot.  In  the  Journal  he  wonders  whether 
Diderot  has  "outlived  himself.  "^^  He  writes  Nicolai  (Nov.  30)  that 
Diderot  is  "the  best  philosopher  in  France  and  regrets  only  that  he 
"knows  too  little  of  German  philosophy";  he  speaks  also  of  a  treatise 
"on  the  imitation  of  different  nations  in  the  different  fine 
arts"  which  Diderot  is  preparing  and  promises  to  write  more 
of  him   and   of   French   literature   another  time.     In   the  Journal, 

«  I,  282.     Diderot  (Assezat  Ed.) 

*8  See  above. 

«  To  Hartknoch,  Aug.  4;  to  Hamann  Lb.  II,  2.3,  p.  62. 

60 IV,  225. 

« IV,  435. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  117 

written  in  Paris,^^  we  find  this  highly  pertinent  statement: 
"I  have  worked  out  something  with  regard  to  aesthetics  and  believe 
it  to  be  really  new;  but  in  how  little?  In  the  proposition  that  sight 
sees  only  surfaces,  touch  feels  only  forms;  this  was  already  known  to 
us  through  optics.^^  Only  the  application  remains  therefore  that 
painting  is  for  the  eye  and  sculpture  for  the  touch,  a  discovery  which 
is  still  slight  and  if  expanded  too  much  will  lead  to  absurd  conse- 
quences. Therefore  let  this  proposition  be  a  guide  for  more  experi- 
ments with  regard  to  sight  and  touch.  I  must  become  a  blind  man  in 
order  to  examine  the  philosophy  of  this  sense !  I  believe  I  am  on  some 
new  paths,  let  me  see!"  There  follow  some  outlines  bearing  these 
headings:  ''Illusion  der  Statue  vom  Fleische,"  "Vom  Schonen  durchs 
Gefuhl,"  ''Von  der  Philosophie  des  Gefiihls  iiberhaupt,"  "Illusion 
der  Statue  vom  Geiste."  He  continues:  "This  is  a  plan  which  had 
been  previously  made,  which  however  needs  to  be  enlivened  through 
an  association  with  and  a  study  of  the  blind  and  the  deaf  and  dumb. 
Diderot  can  he  my  model  in  making  experiments,  but  not  merely  to 
build  on  his  experiments  and  theorize  (systematisiren)  on  them."^^ 

The  earliest  studies  for  the  Plastik,  in  which  Herder  embodies  his 
new  theories,  date  back  to  this  time.  The  first  of  these  as  well  as  the 
later  ones  are  introduced  by  an  outline  of  Diderot's  Letter  on  the 
Blind  and  even  more  than  in  the  Fourth  Waldchen  the  case  of  the 
blind  man  is  used  to  make  clear  the  particular  point  in  mind.  But  in 
Paris  Herder's  enthusiasm  extended  beyond  this  one  idea  and 
included  other  theories  indicating  a  familiarity  with  Diderot's  Letter 
on  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  and  the  Dramatic  essays.  In  the  Journal 
under  date  of  Dec.  2^^  Herder  writes:  "I  have  heard  whole  pieces  and 
not  found  a  single  inarticulate  cry  of  nature  and  passion  which  could 
be  called  natural,  have  seen  pieces  with  no  movement,  not  a  step 
which  could  have  moved  a  person  who  was  deaf."  This  was  with 
reference  to  Diderot's  theory  of  pantomime.  Diderot  reports  that 
he  often  went  to  the  theatre  and  stopped  his  ears  that  he  might 
the  better  judge  of  the  action  of  a  piece  and  the  expression  of  the 
emotion  through  gestures  etc.    Herder  speaks  further  of  simplicity  as 

62 IV,  443  f . 

"  See  reference  to  Smith  above,  p.  115. 

"  IV,  443  S. 

« IV,  481. 


118  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

the  real  expression  of  passion  and  states  that  the  stage  could  be  the 
best  school  of  morals  by  the  production  of  honnete  comedies.  ^*0h, 
could  I  contribute  to  this  end.  I  will  at  least  strengthen  Diderot's 
voice. "^®  With  respect  to  opera:  "A  deaf  man  who  could  see  and  a 
blind  man  who  could  hear,  which  would  get  more  from  the  opera? 
The  former  among  the  French  and  the  latter  among  the  Italians." 
He  then  proposes  an  opera  where  the  story  can  be  followed  .by  the 
eye  without  the  necessity  of  hearing.^^ 

Diderot's  contribution  to  Herder's  thought  in  view  of  these  state- 
ments is  unquestionable.  It  would  be  interesting  to  determine  at 
just  what  time  the  possibility  of  applying  a  theory  of  the  blind  to 
aesthetic  theory  had  occurred  to  him  since  with  this  theory  Herder  is 
able  to  advance  along  peculiarly  positive  lines.  As  has  been  stated 
in  no  writing  previous  to  the  Paris  period  do  we  find  any  mention  of 
this  theory  except  within  the  Fourth  Waldchen  and  the  question 
may  here  be  asked  whether  or  not  this  theory  was  itself  a  part  of  the 
original  draft  of  the  Waldchen  made  in  Riga  or  was  an  essential  part 
of  the  ^'revision"  which  took  place  in  Nantes.  A  brief  discussion  of 
this  point  will  form  the  concluding  section  of  this  study. 

w  IV,  483. 
"  IV,  484. 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  FOURTH  WALDCHEN 

WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  THE 

INFLUENCE  OF  DIDEROT 

From  what  has  been  stated  in  the  preceding  section  with  regard  to 
Diderot,  it  is  clear  that  the  new  theory  of  the  relation  of  the  sense  of 
touch  to  sculpture  had  become  an  all  engrossing  subject  with  Herder 
so  far  as  the  field  of  aesthetics  was  concerned.  It  has  been  seen  that 
in  the  development  of  this  theory  Diderot's  study  of  the  blind  played 
an  exceedingly  important  part  since  Herder  not  only  never  fails  to 
include  an  analysis  of  the  Letter  on  the  Blind  in  every  draft  of  the 
Plastik,  but  the  argument  from  the  blind  forms  an  integral  part  of  the 
discussion  not  only  here  but  in  all  of  his  future  aesthetic  works,  this 
being  notably  the  case  in  the  Kalligone  wherein  Herder  attempts  to 
combat  the  position  of  Kant.  Since  the  first  use  which  was  made  of 
the  Letter  on  the  Blind  occurs  in  certain  sections  of  the  Fourth 
Waldchen  and  since  the  first  evidences  of  enthusiasm  for  this  phase  of 
Diderot's  thought  appear  during  the  French  Visit,  and  especially 
during  his  stay  in  Paris,  one  is  drawn  to  the  conclusion  that  this 
particular  turn  in  Herder's  interest  not  only  represents  a  late  develop- 
ment within  the  work,  but  was  probably  coincident  with  his  French 
visit. 

When  Herder  undertook  to  write  the  fourth  of  the  Critical 
Waldchen  he  had  a  full  program  before  him  in  combating  Riedel's 
theory  or  aesthetics  and  in  setting  up  a  general  theory  of  his  own. 
In  this  connection  then  it  is  of  no  little  significance  that  Herder's 
publisher  Hartknoch,  after  having  had  access  to  the  Riga  Manuscript 
before  Herder  took  it  with  him  to  France,  should  fail  to  see  in  it  any- 
thing further  than  an  "attack  on  Riedel"  together  with  "much 
thorough  investigation."^  It  may  be  further  noted  that  Hartknoch 
made  no  mention  at  all  of  the  Waldchen  in  the  first  letter  he  wrote 
Herder  after  his  departure,  so  that  there  seems  to  be  good  grounds  to 
believe  that  the  "new  theory"  did  not  form  a  part  of  the  Riga  Manu- 
script, since  no  reader  of  the  Waldchen  in  its  present  form  would 
fail  to  point  out  Herder's  new  and  positive  contribution,  the  original- 
ity of  which  Herder  is  not  lax  in  emphasizing. 

» See  below,  p.  124. 


120  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

The  correspondence  indicates  that  Herder's  first  interest  after  his 
arrival  in  Nantes  was  the  perusal  of  the  Encyclopedie,  which  might 
well  have  furnished  the  occasion  for  familiarizing  himself  with  Did- 
erot's position,  since  the  article  Aveugle  contained  a  good 
synopsis  of  the  Letter,  although  one  may  not  suppose  Herder  to  have 
been  unacquainted  with  the  existence  of  this  work  of  Diderot.  It  is 
on  the  other  hand  worthy  of  note  that  in  a  reference  to  Diderot  in 
the  correspondence  of  the  Riga  period  during  the  composition  of  the 
Waldchen,  wherein  Herder  mentions  that  he  had  been  reading  the 
article  "Beau"  of  Diderot,  and  had  found  nothing  there  which  was 
new  to  him,  he  makes  no  mention  at  all  of  the  article  on  the  Blind 
which  later  figured  so  vitally  in  his  work. 

We  have  no  information  concerning  the  extent  of  revision  which 
Herder  undertook  in  his  Waldchen  after  his  arrival  in  France  further 
than  that  contained  in  a  letter  written  to  his  publisher  in  October. 
"I  am  just  on  the  point  of  leaving  Nantes,  and  Heaven  knows  I  have 
so  much  to  do  that  I  don't  know  how  I  shall  get  through.  I  have 
worked  over  the  Fourth  Waldchen  and  still  have  one  part  to  change 
before  sending  it  off."  And  later  in  the  same  letter  he  states  that  he 
is  going  ''to  besiege"  him  with  books,  and  first  of  all  is  the  Fourth 
Waldchen.  "It  is  quite  different  from  the  preceding  ones;  the  style 
is  much  more  dignified  and  has  very  interesting  passages,  which 
however  must  be  searched  for." 

In  this  connection  it  is  illuminating  to  consider  the  effect  of  the 
departure  from  Riga  on  Herder's  general  state  of  mind  as  he  seems 
to  recognize  it  himself.  To  Hartknoch  (Aug.  4)  he  writes  that  he  will 
discontinue  the  controversy  with  Klotz  "because  of  a  more  dignified 
bearing  which  he  owes  himself  and  the  public."  He  promises  for  the 
future  to  get  beyond  the  "elende  kurze  Zeitverbindungen"  and  to 
write  only  such  things  as  will  "add  to  the  sum  of  human  thought." 
In  a  letter  to  Nicolai  (Aug.  5)  he  makes  it  clear  that  the  quarrels  with 
the  Klotzian  school  had  gotten  on  his  nerves  and  for  this  and  other 
reasons  he  found  that  his  own  future  development  rested  on  his 
breaking  away  from  Riga,^  and  later  in  the  same  letter  he  wishes 
that  Lessing  would  no  longer  have  anything  to  do  with  this  "nest  of 
hornets."  On  the  eve  of  leaving  Nantes  for  Paris,  he  writes  to  Hart- 
knoch (Oct.  1769)  "Picture  to  yourself  the  first  rest  after  long  public 

2  See  also  to  Hamann  End  of  August. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  121 

activities,  the  first  feeling  of  giving  oneself  over  to  the  Muses  without 
having  the  hours  call  to  duty,  the  first  sensation  of  not  having  to  lie 
in  wait  anxiously  for  the  next  Klotzian  papers,  or  of  fermenting 
Critical  Waldchen  and  studying  literature  as  literature.  Feeling 
demands  rest  and  progress  and  I  should  have  been  unworthy  of  any 
further  attempt  with  the  Muses  if  I  had  not  had  such  a  splendid 
pause  between  work  and  travel,  between  mouldering  monotony  and 
too  sudden  dissipation,  between  sea  and  land,  between  Riga  and 
Paris.  And  I  may  say,  now  that  I  am  closing  up  everything,  that  I 
am  not  leaving  Nantes  as  I  came  here,  even  in  respect  to  many  phases 
of  my  thought."  "Many  ideas  and  prejudices  with  regard  to  my  writ- 
ings have  changed."  Whether  or  not  these  reference  have  directly 
to  do  with  the  Fourth  Waldchen,  they  emphasize  a  fact,  which  of 
course  is  well  known,  that  the  period  in  Nantes  was  in  the  real  sense  of 
the  word  a  period  of  transition.  It  is  clear  that  controversial  writing 
had  become  distasteful  to  him,  and  that  he  was  impatient  to  apply 
himself  to  original  work.  From  this  standpoint  the  Waldchen  under 
discussion  finds  its  place  in  so  far  as  it  reveals  what  is  in  part  critical 
and  polemic,  and  what  on  the  other  hand  is  distinctly  new  theory  and 
to  which  his  future  writing  in  this  field  naturally  attaches  itself. 

The  earliest  references  to  the  Waldchen  leave  no  doubt  with 
regard  to  its  original  purpose,  namely  to  combat  the  theory  of  Riedel. 
Such  a  purpose  was  consistent  with  the  general  character  of  the 
critical  "Waldchen"  which  with  the  second  and  third  Waldchen  had 
taken  on  a  distinctly  polemic  character.  In  fact  all  of  Herder's  pre- 
ceding work  had  been  essentially  critical,  no  independently  construc- 
tive work  having  appeared  up  to  this  time  from  his  pen.  The  desire 
to  combat  Riedel  in  particular  had  its  immediate  source  in  the 
controversy  with  the  Klotz  school  which  had  been  brought  to  a  head, 
as  far  as  Herder  himself  was  concerned,  by  Riedel's  participation  in 
securing  a  copy  of  the  revised  third  volume  of  the  Fragmente  before 
it  was  ready  for  the  public,  his  purpose  being  to  publish  an  early 
critique  of  the  work.  Herder  was  deeply  incensed  and  his  entire 
correspondence  at  this  time  indicates  to  what  extent  he  was  willing 
to  play  the  partisan  in  lining  up|the  forces  of  Lessing,  Sulzer,  Mendels- 
sohn etc.,  against  the  entire  Riedel-Klotz  school.  Out  of  this 
"quarrel"  grew  the  Fourth  Waldchen. 

Since  Riedel's  work  offered  what  he  called  a  theory  of  aesthetics, 
and  at  the  same  time  represented  an  eclectic  assemblage  of  ideas 


122 

gleaned  from  many  writers  on  aesthetics  in  France,  England  and 
Germany,  Herder  found  it  necessary  first  to  show  that  the  funda- 
mental position  of  the  Riedel  School,  which  accepted  the  general 
viewpoint  of  Hutcheson  with  regard  to  three  fundamental  faculties 
of  the  soul  was  not  in  accord  with  the  main  position  of  Wolffian 
philosophy;  in  the  second  place  to  reinterpret  these  same  writers 
whom  Riedel  had  quoted,  and  in  the  third  place  to  establish  a  general 
theory  of  his  own.  The  correspondence  makes  this  in  the  main  clear. 
At  the  moment  he  is  turning  his  attention  to  the  composition  of  this 
work  he  writes  to  Hamann  (Nov.  1769)  that  Burke's  work  on  the 
Sublime  "overthrows  the  Darje-Riedel-Hutcheson  philosophy," 
which  calls  to  mind  that  in  the  older  manuscript  of  page  1,  of  the 
Waldchen  in  attacking  Riedel's  position  there  is  this  similar  state- 
ment: "One  sees  the  so-called  fundamental  faculties  of  the  Crusius- 
Darje-Hutcheson  philosophy."^  In  a  letter  to  Nicolai  (Jan.  10)  he 
looked  upon  Sulzer's  work  from  exactly  this  angle.  After  mentioning 
the  reading  of  Sulzer's  essays  he  proceeds,  "I  am  thinking  of  giving 
my  views  on  Riedel's  Theory,  I  wanted  to  say  Rhapsody,  and  even 
undigested  Rhapsody  of  poetry  and  art,  and  pfui!  this  compositor 
doesn't  know  any  Sulzer,  nor  his  theory  of  Sensation,  etc.  But 
between  us,  I  am  hoping  to  be  able  to  give  a  coherent  treatment  of 
my  views  on  aesthetics  and  in  so  doing  to  fill  in  part  of  my  Fragmente 
which  is  lacking."^  A  reference  to  Sulzer's  work  three  months  later 
indicates  that  Herder's  main  concern  continues  to  be  the  overthrow 
of  Riedel's  position,  "The  Theory  of  Riedel  will  be  completely 
blotted  out  and  extinguished  by  this  work."^ 

Suphan  has  gathered  together  the  data  concerning  the  composition 
of  the  Fourth  Waldchen  in  the  Introduction  to  Volume  III  of  his 
Edition  of  Herder,  and  the  conclusions  there  arrived  at  are  in  the 
main  acceptable  to  Haym.  Mention  is  there  made  of  scattered  pages 
of  several  manuscripts,  but  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  a  more  thorough 
examination  of  these  manuscripts  was  not  presented,  and  particularly 
from  the  standpoint  of  content.  So  thoroughly  are  we  convinced  by 
every  evidence  at  hand  that  the  "revisions"  which  took  place  after 
the  departure  from  Riga  were  partly  of  a  positive  nature  that  we 

« IV,  5  note. 

*  See  Haym  I,  248. 

6  To  Nicolai,  March  1769. 


herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time  123 

believe  these  "scattered  pages"  if  they  lend  themselves  to  examination 
will  confirm  the  general  conclusions  here  reached.  It  is  of  course 
difficult  to  conjecture  how  far  Herder  had  developed  in  his  own  mind 
the  ''general  theory  of  aesthetics."  There  is  to  be  sure  a  reasonable 
possibility  that  he  was  in  fact  prepared  earlier  to  announce  a 
theory  which  would  take  into  account  the  senses,  working  in  the  sug- 
gestion of  Sulzer  or  Mendelssohn,  and  following  the  analogy  of  Burke. 
There  is  a  basis  for  this  supposition  in  several  passages  in  the  Wald- 
chen  where  ''feeling"  is  used  in  a  sort  of  general  sense,  and  we  might 
conclude  therefore  that  not  until  Diderot  had  furnished  definite  view- 
points did  Herder  see  the  matter  with  the  precision  which  character- 
ized his  later  thought,  and  which  allowed  him  to  set  forth  boldly  a 
theory  of  touch. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  discussion  of  Suphan  which  militates 
against  any  of  the  conclusions  stated  above.  While  we  may  agree 
with  Suphan  that  a  portion  of  the  original  manuscript  ending  with  the 
statement  "Eben  lese  ich,  dass  Sulzers  Worterbuch  zum  Druck  fertig 
liege"  was  probably  written  by  March  1768,  from  the  fact  that  the 
correspondence  of  March  contains  a  similar  error  of  statement  with 
regard  to  Sulzer's  work  which  was  corrected  later  to  read  "erscheinen 
werde,"^  one  does  not  find  it  necessary  to  accept  the  inference  that  the 
two-thirds  of  the  original  work  completed  at  that  time  corresponds 
with  two-thirds  of  the  Waldchen  in  its  present  form.  An  examination 
of  the  Fourth  Waldchen  for  example,  makes  it  clear  that  Part  I  of  the 
Waldchen  may  well  have  represented  older  material,  since  there  is  no 
indication  of  the  new  position  and  only  once  a  hint  of  the  possibility 
of  a  division  of  the  arts  according  to  the  senses  involved,  this  however, 
being  confined  to  the  senses  of  sight  and  hearing.  But  in  Part  II,  the 
first  section  and  sections  3  to  9  proceed  so  clearly  in  the  manner  of  the 
later  Plastik,  and  with  scarcely  a  reference  to  Riedel  and  his  own 
general  theory,  that  one  is  inclined  to  attribute  this  to  a  later  work- 
manship, and  this  possibility  Suphan  does  not  in  any  way  take  into 
account. 

With  regard  to  the  completion  of  the  Riga  manuscript  Suphan 
leaves  a  similar  inference,  namely  that  the  present  form  of  the  work 
was  not  essentially  different  from  its  original  form.     The  letter, 

« IV,  168. 


124  herder's  relation  to  the  aesthetic  theory  of  his  time 

however,  from  which  this  conclusion  is  drawn  states  surprisingly 
little.  Hartknoch  writes  Herder  after  his  departure,  as  follows: 
"And  now  the  last  volume  of  the  critical  Waldchen  against  Riedel. 
In  the  Preface  to  the  Third  Waldchen  }  ou  have  called  this  Theory 
the  most  wretched  of  books,  so  now  out  with  the  whole  story.  I 
think  the  Waldchen  should  crown  the  entire  work;  there  is  much 
thorough  investigation  in  it."  To  conclude  from  this  that  the  work 
was  practically  completed  before  Herder  left  Riga  is  a  rather  bold 
procedure  and  in  any  case  does  not  solve  the  question  of  the  extent 
of  later  "revision." 

In  a  note  to  Chapter  3  of  Part  II  of  the  Fourth  Waldchen  Suphan 
draws  a  final  conclusion  that  the  discussion  of  sculpture  as  the  art  of 
touch  was  in  fact  a  part  of  the  Riga  manuscript.  There  is  no  con- 
vincing argument  against  this  supposition,  but  when  he  substan- 
tiates this  by  noting  Diderot's  familiarity  with  Diderot's  Letter  on 
the  Deaf  and  Dumb,  which  we  know  of  course  he  made  use  of  in  the 
Fragmente,  he  fails  to  see  the  vital  relation  which  the  Letter  on  the 
Blind  bears  to  this  Fourth  Waldchen,  and  we  have  little  doubt  Her- 
der's enthusiasm  for  this  new  study  was  not  only  intimately  con- 
nected with  Diderot's  letter  on  the  Blind,  but  closely  connected  with 
his  French  journey,  which  is  our  point  of  contention. 

While  nothing  here  stated  with  regard  to  the  composition  of  the 
Waldchen  affects  any  of  the  preceding  study,  we  believe  that  the 
problem  of  the  composition  of  this  Waldchen  has  more  than  passing 
interest  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  history  of  Herder's  development  of 
thought.  This  might  not  be  so  true  were  it  not  that  the  composition 
of  the  Waldchen  bridges  a  period  of  such  marked  transition  in  Herder's 
thought.  For  this  reason  if  for  no  other  we  hold  that  a  more  thorough 
analysis  of  the  manuscripts  of  this  work  are  due  to  the  public  than 
Suphan  has  ventured  to  offer. 

Finis. 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  2^^^^^^^^^^^ 


RETURN 


LOAN  PERKDO  V 

HOME  use 


2^ 


AU  BOOKS  MAY  K  RECAIUD  AHER  7  DAYS. 
R*n«w1t  and  R*chargtt  may  b«  mod*  4  dayt  priof  to 
Books  may  b«  Hnmr96  by  coflng  642-3406. 


^    ^           DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

oCNT  ON  ILL 

JAN  0  8  1999 

U.  C.  BPRKFI  PY 

RDQMNn  HTM 


UNIVERSnV  Of  CALIFORNIA.  BERKELEY 


t 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
FORM  NO.  DD6,  60m,  1 2/80        BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


®S 


ewfwt 


"'""■-.c..««,^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


